To Drown in Shallow Waters
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Time is cruel, especially to those that travel through it outside the normal laws of physics. Sometimes it gives, but more often it takes. When five year old Desmond is whisked away to a time and place he doesn't know, he learns this lesson the hard way.
1. Chapter 1

2012

-/-

Desmond climbed out of Lucy's trunk, trying to ignore the way his arms and legs felt like they were being stabbed with pins and needles. He cracked a smile anyway, and Lucy returned it enthusiastically. "Not too badly knocked around?" she asked.

"Better than still being a prisoner," he said. "Is this it?"

"In all it's glory," Lucy said. The building she'd taken them to after fleeing Abstergo was certainly not impressive, but they were supposed to be hiding after all. It would be sort of counterproductive to have a building that stuck out like a sore thumb.

Desmond followed quietly behind Lucy as she led the way inside. His mind wandered, mulling over everything that had happened recently. It had been an insane week- kidnapped and stuffed into a machine that sounded like something straight out of science fiction. He shook his head to clear it, and called out to Lucy. "How many floors up are we going?"

"Only two," Lucy said cheerfully. "Having trouble keeping up?"

She wasn't mocking him- if anything, her tone was joking, almost like she was flirting. Desmond frowned, and the old scar on his mouth throbbed painfully. A reminder. "It was just a question," he said, more abruptly than he'd meant to.

"Oh," Lucy said. "Sorry."

They climbed the rest of the way in silence, and when they reached the top (and a room that looked much cleaner and better equipped than the outside of the building would suggest), Lucy made her introductions in a perfunctory way.

"This is our little group," she told Desmond. "It's just the three of us- well, four, now that you're here. That's Rebecca-" she pointed at a woman hunched in front of a computer nearby, who waved and smiled distractedly. "And Shaun." A grunt from the other end of the room. "Everyone, this is Desmond Miles."

He muttered a hello, but no one said anything back, and Lucy started to move on with her little tour of the apartment. There wasn't much to look at, and before long they were standing in front of Shaun's desk as Lucy explained his role in their little group. Then Desmond blinked. "Hang on," he said, interrupting Lucy midsentence. "Shaun _Hastings_?"

He looked up at Desmond, away from his work for the first time since Desmond and Lucy had come into the room. Then his eyes widened in recognition. "Desmond?"

"I had no idea you were an assassin," Desmond said. "You never told me-"

"I wasn't," Shaun said. "Not the last time we saw each other. What was that, ten years ago?"

"Eight," said Desmond.

"Close enough."

"You… know each other?" Lucy asked, looking uncertainly between the two men.

"Oh yea," Shaun said. "We-"

Desmond kicked him under the table, which wasn't quite the subtle hint he was hoping it would be. Shaun yelped and glared at him. "What was that for?" he demanded.

Desmond didn't answer, just turned to Lucy and changed the subject, asking something about her role in the group. She answered- a little uncertainly, and clearly still curious, and eventually the conversation moved on. A while later Lucy went over to Rebecca's station to talk with her about something or other, and Shaun turned on Desmond.

"What's going on?" he demanded. "You vanish into thin air one day, no warning or anything that you're going to leave, and now you turn up out of nowhere-"

"Shaun-"

He went on, ignoring Desmond's interruption. "And apparently your last name is Miles now, not Kenway-"

"Seriously, will you just-"

"You lied to me," Shaun finished, glaring accusingly at Desmond.

"Of course," Desmond said. "I wasn't going to come right out and tell all my secrets to some guy I'd just met."

"You crashed on my couch for almost a year!"

"I didn't have anywhere else to go!"

"You still should have said something," Shaun said, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean, I always knew you were weird, but this is weird even for you."

"Sorry," Desmond said. "I should have said something, only…" Only it sounded insane.

"Tell me now," Shaun said. "Seriously, right now."

Desmond nodded. He trusted Shaun, and now that he knew the man was an assassin as well, there was no reason to stay quiet. He opened his mouth to insist that Shaun keep this a secret, then shut it again. It had been a while since he'd seen Shaun, but he trusted him enough to assume that could go without saying.

"Alright," Desmond he said instead, and pulled a chair over to Shaun's desk to lean across it, ignoring the other man's protests that he would make a mess of everything. "It started twenty years ago," he said. "August, 1992. I was five years old."

"And?" Shaun said.

"And that was the first year I traveled through time."

-/-

1992

-/-

Night fell heavily over the Farm, hot and sticky and miserable. It wasn't exactly unusual weather for August, and normally Desmond would barely have noticed. Already at five years old, he had learned better than to waste his time complaining. The adults on the Farm were way too busy with their own problems to bother with him, and he'd only be snapped at if he dared complain about something as petty as the weather.

Still, the weather tonight had him on edge. It wasn't just the heat. He was used to that, but the rumbling of thunder like cannonfire in the distance kept him jumping every few minutes. Last spring, a huge storm that lasted three days straight had rolled through the Farm, ripping down trees and burying everything under a thick layer of muddy water. Ever since then, Desmond had been terrified of the sound of thunder, and had spent more than one night hiding under his bed and shaking like a leaf.

Sometime after dinner, when a bigger than usual burst of thunder had Desmond almost jumping out of his chair, his dad finally noticed and, like Desmond had expected, snapped. "What's wrong now?" he demanded.

"The thunder," Desmond muttered. "I don't like it."

"What thunder?" his dad asked. "There's no thunder."

Desmond opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself just at the last second. It was never a good idea to argue with his dad, even though he could still hear the thunder rumbling in the distance, coming closer with every passing minute.

His dad made a show of sighing loudly, and stood up from the table. "Come here," he said, and Desmond followed him hesitantly toward the window. He could barely see over the window ledge, so his dad lifted him up to get a better view. "Look," he said. "Not a cloud in the sky."

"But…"

It was true- the sky outside was dark, but only because it was late. There were no clouds, no sign of rain, no lightning- but he could still hear the thunder. He bit his lip and tried to figure out what was going on.

"Now go get ready for bed," his dad said, setting him down and giving him a little push. "It's getting late."

Desmond nodded, then started as the loudest clap of thunder yet rang out. He saw his dad roll his eyes and Desmond ran for his own room before he could get a lecture about making things up. By the time he made it to the safety of his own bed, there were tears in his eyes. He just barely managed to keep himself from crying until he was absolutely sure his dad wasn't going to follow him in. Then, when he was sure no one was around to hear him, Desmond buried his face in his pillow and cried.

It was a long time before he ran out of tears, but eventually the ugly sobs trailed off into a hiccup whimpering. Desmond didn't feel much better- the thunder alone was enough to terrify him, but the fact that no one else could even hear it was worse. He felt like everyone was laughing at him, and he didn't understand why.

He lay there, sniffling quietly, until he heard quiet footsteps come up to him. Desmond held his breath and squeezed his eyes closed more tightly, hoping that it wasn't his dad come to check up on him. Not that it had ever happened before, but his mom was spending the week away somewhere, and there was no one else in the house.

"What are you doing in here?" someone asked, and Desmond nearly stopped breathing in surprise. It wasn't his dad's voice- it wasn't any voice he recognized. He opened his eyes and sat up, wiping away the last of his tears. A girl stood over him, close to his own age, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

"Who are you?" Desmond asked, and she frowned.

"I asked you first," she said.

"I-" he looked around, and realized suddenly that he wasn't in his room anymore. Instead, he was in someone's barn, sitting on the ground in the dirt. The whole place smelled like animals, and Desmond wrinkled his nose as the stench really hit him. "Where am I?"

"You're in the barn," the girl said, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"Oh," Desmond said. Another clap of thunder interrupted him before he could say anything else, and the girl jumped at the same moment he did. For once, though, the sound of thunder didn't have him terrified. He was mostly just thankful that she seemed to have heard it too.

The girl wrapped her arms tight around herself and frowned. "It's raining," she said.

"I don't like storms," Desmond admitted, and she shook her head wildly before letting herself fall to the ground next to him. Her dress- old fashioned and blue, with a thick coat of mud on the bottom- spread out on the ground around her. She made a face and pushed it out of the way.

"Me neither," she said. "My grandma told me not to go out, but I didn't listen to her and then it started to rain and I came in here. Is that why you're here? Because of the rain?"

"I don't know why I'm here," Desmond said. "I was in my room at the farm, and then I was here-"

"Oh!" the girl said. She brightened a little. "Your family lives on a farm? There's a lot of those around. I can ask my grandma tomorrow. She knows everything, she'll know how to get you home."

She smiled at Desmond, and he managed to smile back a little. Outside, the sounds of the storm had started to fade a little, and Desmond found himself a little excited about the unexpected adventure. "I'm Desmond," he said, and held out his hand very seriously like he'd seen his dad do the few times they'd had visitors at the Farm. She shook it, giggling a little.

"That's a funny name," she said. "I've never met a Desmond before."

"Yea?" he stuck out his tongue at her, but that only made her laugh harder. "What's your name, then?"

"Jennifer Scott," she said. "But you can call me Jenny."

-/-

1738

-/-

Jenny found her brother in front of their father's grave, sitting in a cross legged pose with his chin on his hands, frowning at the stone like it held all the answers to all the questions he could ever want to ask.

She leaned against a tree, arms crossed, and watched him for a little while. It had been nine years since she'd last seen him. He'd only been three then, a kid, with a smile full of holes from where he'd lost his baby teeth. He wasn't a kid now, and he didn't look like he did much smiling either.

Jenny stepped away from the tree, purposefully making enough noise that Haytham would be sure to notice her footsteps. Sure enough, he turned round, jumping to his feet like he was ready to fight. The stance was good, for a beginner, but his eyes were wide and Jenny could tell by a glance that he'd never been in a real fight, against someone that actually wanted to kill him.

"Who-" he faltered a little, then relaxed into a more normal posture. "Jenny?"

"Long time no see," she said, and he shook his head.

"I thought you were dead," he said, his voice accusatory. "You left."

"I did," Jenny said. "I went… looking for someone." She realized she was rubbing her hands together and stopped. It was a nervous gesture, a bad habit she'd picked up years ago.

"You didn't come back," Haytham said.

Which was also true. She should have, when she heard that her father had been killed, and that Haytham had been taken in by templars. But in the end, she'd been too much of a coward and had stayed away. Until now, when the guilt finally got to be too much, and she'd come to find her brother at last.

"There are some things you should know," she said. "About what really happened that night. When dad was killed."

"I know already," Haytham said. "They told me- assassins came and killed him."

"No," Jenny said. "They were templars, not assassins."

"But-" She could see his mind working, trying to figure out this new information. "Dad was-"

"An assassin," Jenny said. "And so am I, actually."

"Is my mother-"

"No." Jenny shook her head. "Tessa always knew about it, but I guess she wasn't interested in involving herself."

"What about Desmond?" Haytham asked, and Jenny's hand twinged painfully. This time she managed to keep herself from rubbing at it.

"Yes," she said. "He was an assassin, and… well, he was complicated. Is." Because she still didn't think he was dead. Not really, just… gone."

"What does that mean?" Haytham demanded. He sounded half angry and half whiny, and Jenny couldn't keep herself from feeling sorry for him. She'd never been that good at explaining things, and this was a pretty big bombshell she'd just dropped.

"It means… how about this. I'll tell you the whole story, everything I know, all the stuff I went through growing up. Then you can decide for yourself what to think about it all."

Haytham turned his head a little, studying her intently. Then he nodded. "Fine," he said. "Tell me your story."

Jenny closed her eyes and let out a heartfelt sigh. These were memories she hadn't gone back to in years. They were difficult ones, happy times made sad because they were over and done and she could never go back. But she had to start somewhere. "Alright," she said aloud. "I guess I can start twenty years ago, in 1718."

"Why there?" Haytham asked.

"Because that was the day I wandered into grandmother's barn and found a half drowned little boy there," Jenny said. "His name was Desmond."

-/-

1718

-/-

Jenny woke up sometime close to noon and realized she'd fallen asleep practically on top of Desmond. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could (because he seemed nice, but he was still a boy and boys were gross) and kicked his foot a little until he mumbled something and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Storm's gone," Jenny said.

"Good," Desmond said, jumping to his feet. "What do we do now?"

"We're going to see my grandma," Jenny said. "She's really nice. She'll help."

"Okay," Desmond said, but he didn't move until Jenny actually grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the barn door.

"Come on," she said as they half stumbled out of the barn. Outside, the sun shone brightly and the world smelled wet and fresh. "Race you!"

"I don't know where we're going!" Desmond protested, but Jenny was already running and didn't want to stop. She just pointed at the house on the hill and ran faster. Desmond started running too, and together they charged up the slope, dodging puddles and sheep droppings. There were a lot of sheep around- her grandpa had been a sheep farmer his whole life, and after he died late last year, her grandma had taken over the farm with the same excitement she had for every part of her life.

Jenny was panting by the time she got to the top of the hill, but at least she was faster than Desmond, who was also breathing hard when he finally caught up. "No fair!" he whined. "I didn't know where we were going!"

"Sore loser!" Jenny crowed.

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

He made a face at her and she made one back. "I still won," she said. "I-"

The smile slipped from her face as Jenny heard the house door slam, and a second later her grandma came striding toward them across the grass, an angry expression on her face. "Where were you last night?" she demanded. "The worst storm we've seen in fifty years and you go running off! What were you thinking?"

"I didn't know it was going to rain," Jenny said.

"That's no excuse," her grandma said. She sighed and looked Jenny over, head to toe. "Do you know what your mother would have said if she thought I didn't know where you were last night? You know she doesn't like you coming down here in the first place."

"I know," Jenny said, suddenly guilty. "But grandma- I found someone!"

She gave Jenny a look that said clearly there would be more words about this later, then switched her attention to Desmond. He squirmed a little and looked sideways at Jenny. "And where did you find this one?" she asked.

"In the barn," Jenny said. "He told me he doesn't know how he got there."

Her grandma turned her full attentions to Desmond, who fidgeted a little. "Is that true?" she asked, and Desmond nodded miserably.

"I don't know how to get home," he said, then suddenly frowned. "And I don't want to."

Jenny expected her grandma to ask why Desmond didn't want to go home, but she only looked him up and down with an odd intensity. There was a golden light in her eyes that Jenny barely had time to notice before it vanished. Then, she nodded. "You can stay here, if you like," she said. "But I warn you, life here isn't easy. There's hard work, and lots of it."

"I can do it," Desmond said.

"You're letting him stay?" Jenny asked, perking up a little.

"For now," her grandma said. "For now."

**-/-**

**Please bear with me for some authors' notes while I sort of babble about this fic. I've got quite a few things to say.**

**First, this has been sitting on my computer for months and I finally figured that I'm never going to get round to editing it so I might as well just stick it up.**

**Second, I wrote the entire thing out of order. Like, I wrote the story-within-the-story (the parts Desmond and Jenny are telling Shaun and Haytham, respectively) and then went back and did the later sections. Because of that, characters will reference things that won't come up until later as though they'd already happened. It's just me trying something different- hopefully it's not too confusing.**

**Third, like I said earlier, this is unedited and I'm not entirely happy with how the first draft came out. Hopefully it's not too full of grammar mistakes or plot holes.**

**Phew! Told you this would be long. Hopefully now that I got this out of my system I'll be able to shut up and not be annoying for the next twelve chapters.**


	2. Chapter 2

2012

-/-

It was late, and dark out by the time Desmond stopped for a rest, and by that point Shaun was staring at him like he'd never seen anything quite like him before. "You're telling me you just… just accidentally traveled through time?" He threw his arms out in an uncharacteristically expressive gesture. "How does that even happen?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Desmond said flatly. "I didn't know then and I don't know now."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

Desmond snorted. "Not as much as it apparently bothers you," he said. "I was five, Shaun. I kind of just went along with it."

"I cannot believe you," Shaun said. "I really can't. You- I mean, why-?" He glared as Desmond started laughing. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" Desmond asked. "And I've never told anyone, so…" He shrugged. Honestly, he didn't quite know why he was telling Shaun now. In the two decades since he'd first woken up in a time not his own, he'd never even been tempted to explain the strange, twisted story of his life. Jenny had known all along, of course- she'd been there from the beginning, so there hadn't been much point in hiding from her. But to actually go out of his way to explain the whole thing…

"I'm going to bed," he said suddenly.

"Oh come on!" Shaun protested, a little too loudly. Desmond shushed him quickly, glancing at the door to the room where the other two were asleep. "You can't just tell me that much and then stop," Shaun continued, now in a whisper. "I know there's more."

"There is," Desmond said. A lot more. "But it's late and I've said as much as I want to right now." He thought Shaun might still argue, but he just sighed and shook his head.

"Fine," he said. "But I do want to hear the rest of this. Soon."

Desmond nodded and shuffled off to sleep. He felt drained, like he had gotten rid of some heavy load, one that he'd been carrying around for so long he'd completely forgotten it was there. He slept that night without dreaming, and woke feeling refreshed.

Shaun gave him a considering sort of look, but said nothing since the girls were up by then, too.

"Morning," Lucy said cheerfully when she saw Desmond. "Ready for the animus?"

"Not really," he said. "But I guess we should get it over with, right?"

And so the rest of the day was spent in the animus, which was exhausting and not a lot of fun. Desmond was finally released sometime around six, and while Lucy and Rebecca were both distracted, Shaun dragged Desmond away.

"We have a couple hours before they come looking for us," Shaun said. "Probably. I want to hear more."

-/-

1719

-/-

Desmond waited until the house was almost deserted before slipping in the back door and climbing the stairs as quietly as possible. Technically, he had never been banned from the Scott house, but only on the understanding that he would never actually spend any time there. Jenny said it was just because he was staying with her father's mother, and that was kind of a sore spot with her mother's family.

"Jenny?" he called, softly. Softly because he knew her mother had been sick and bedridden for a long time, and he didn't want her to hear him. "You here?"

She came running out of her room and nearly crashed into Desmond, who just barely managed to stop the two of them from falling down the stairs. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"I'm sick of being shut up in here," Jenny said, and now that he had a chance to really look at her, Desmond saw that she was smiling brightly as she said it. "Come on, let's go!"

So the two of them ran back downstairs, shushing each other loudly every few seconds and trying not to laugh. It was rare that they got to actually see each other, and they'd been planning this for weeks. Usually Jenny went with her grandparents when they went out of town, but this time they'd decided she would stay behind with her mother. Which meant, of course, that she'd spend most of her time in the fields with Desmond.

They wasted the day doing what they pleased, wandering first in one direction and then another, talking and running and generally trying to cram everything they could into a single day. Tomorrow, Desmond would be back on the sheep farm with a load of unfinished chores to catch up on, and Jenny would go home, back to where her mother's family would expect her to behave like a proper young woman. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Desmond had no idea, and Jenny never seemed to care at all.

Sometime in the early evening, just as the fireflies started to come out, blinking lazily as they flew past Desmond and Jenny, they ended up on the banks of a tiny creek in the middle of nowhere. Desmond stuck his toes into the cool water and wiggled them. Tiny fish swarmed to the movement, nipping and tickling his feet. "We should do this more often," he said, and Jenny snorted.

"If my grandparents had their way, I'd never leave the house at all," she said. "I hate it."

Desmond looked up from the fish and over to where Jenny sat next to him, her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin on her knees. She looked completely miserable, and Desmond frowned too. He knew exactly how she felt. Before he'd come here- however he'd come here- he'd spent his whole life on the Farm. He'd never once been allowed to leave, and even his time inside the Farm had been strictly controlled. It had been a sort of prison, and Desmond hadn't eve realized how true that was until he came to stay with Linette Kenway.

It was true that a sheep farm wasn't the best place on Earth. There was a lot of work, and the sheep smelled awful. But there was open sky, and room to run, and Jenny-

"Let's run away," Desmond said. It was a kind of impulse, with no thought at all behind the words. "Go on an adventure."

"An adventure?" she asked, managing a tiny smile.

"Yea." Desmond nodded. "We can find pirates, and buried treasures on secret islands-"

"I'd like to meet a pirate." Jenny sighed wistfully and unfolded herself enough to start poking around for sticks and leaves that she crafted into a sort of ship that she dropped into the creek. It floated a few seconds, before gradually flooding with water. "But I have to stay here," Jenny added. "My mother's still sick."

"She's always sick," Desmond said, but didn't argue any farther. It was a silly thing to ask, anyway. They couldn't run away, of course they couldn't. He was still needed on the farm, and Desmond knew Jenny would never leave her mother.

"Someday," Jenny said. "When we're older, okay?"

"Sure," Desmond said. "Someday." His gaze wandered back to the sinking boat of leaves, his mind still filled with dreams of pirates.

-/-

He didn't sleep well that night. His dreams were filled with images of thunder and blood and blackness, and feelings that everything that could possibly go wrong already had, but that somehow the worst was still to come. He woke shaking like a leaf, curled in a tight ball under his blankets, eyes squeezed shut. He could hear distant shouts and the creaking of a ship, but slowly these faded. Desmond opened his eyes again, relieved to find nothing but the same familiar four walls, and to hear nothing but the distant noises of the sheep.

"It's not real," Desmond told himself. "It's not."

-/-

1738

-/-

Haytham reluctantly followed Jenny to a café nearby, but he did follow her. That was sort of a relief- she could see he didn't much trust her, that he blamed her in some way for being gone when their father died. She'd spent quite a few years blaming herself for that anyway, so that wasn't much of a stretch.

But he was willing to listen, for now at least, and she was willing to take as much of an advantage of that as she could.

"Do you want something?" she asked. "To eat, or-"

Haytham shook his head, and Jenny shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said.

He fidgeted a little, and she waited while he frowned and considered her. Eventually though she got tired of waiting and said, "You frown too much."

"What?"

"You've got little frown lines," Jenny said. "How old are you, like fourteen?"

"Thirteen," he said. "Um…"

"Yea?"

"Is anything you told me true?"

"Every word," Jenny said. "Want to hear more?"

Haytham nodded, and so Jenny went on with her story.

-/-

1719

-/-

Jenny had never been good at sitting still, but lately she'd been doing a lot more of it lately. As her mother's condition got worse, Jenny found herself spending most of her time at Caroline's bedside. She was waiting for her mother to die.

She was six years old. She barely understood what death was, only that her mother was going to be taken away from her, forever.

Her grandparents tried to drag her away more than once, but Jenny never let them. They were the ones that wanted her stuck inside the house (so she didn't 'end up going the same way as her mother'- whatever that meant). They would just have to live with her spending all her time with her mother.

There wasn't much to do there but think. The doctor had warned Jenny that too much noise or excitement could make Caroline worse, so she spent most of her time staring out the window and thinking. A lot. The days blurred into one another, with nothing at all to tell one apart from the others. Until the day her mother turned blue.

Not really blue, of course. That would have meant more doctors and more worry, and this was different. More than anything, it was a feeling of… of friendliness, maybe, that Jenny could sense when she concentrated hard, along with a kind of blue glow.

After that, Jenny had something new to keep herself entertained during the endless hours of waiting at her mother's bedside. She spent days staring out the window, watching people pass on the road in front of the house. She found that if she concentrated very, very hard, she could see people in a rainbow of different colors. Blue, of course. Like her mother. Some people were white, and Jenny could sense they were people that could help in some way. Not exactly friends, but people whose help could be paid for, with enough gold. Then there were the people that shone red, and those people she did not like. Most of them were the kind of people she already knew were dangerous. A few of the nastier town drunks, one or two men that always seemed to be in and out of prison.

And then- there was Desmond. She saw him out the window, just once, passing by and glowing gold like nobody else did. She wanted very much to talk to him about it all, but it was no secret that Caroline Scott could not last very much longer. Jenny didn't want to risk leaving, and coming back to find her mother gone forever. She could wait, as long as it took, before going after Desmond. So she didn't talk to him. But she did wonder.


	3. Chapter 3

2012

-/-

It was a few days before Desmond and Shaun had another chance to talk. It was sort of funny watching him get more and more impatient as the days rolled past, and they never once got a chance to be alone. Finally, there came a day when Lucy was out running errands, and Rebecca was engrossed in her computer, headphones blaring something loud and obnoxious. Shaun seemed to think it was as good a time as any to hear more, but Desmond was short tempered and angry. The animus sessions lately had been stressful and long- he was starting to see things that weren't there, and while the hallucinations weren't usually too bad they had started to scare him. It had been a very long time since he had been this afraid, and so when Shaun dragged him away, demanding to know more, Desmond only snapped at him in reply.

"Why are you so interested anyway?" he asked. "It's not exciting or anything it's just…" he trailed off here, shrugging helplessly. "I never saw anything important or historical-"

"That's exactly why it is interesting," Shaun said. "I mean, we have all sorts of records of wars and kings and big discoveries, but the ordinary people- history always forgets them."

"Well-" Desmond grinned a little, thinking of his time in the past, ignoring the way his scar throbbed with the movement. "I don't know if you could call the Kenways ordinary."

Shaun waved a hand dismissively. "Listen," he said. "You actually lived for- what, a decade? More?- in the seventeen hundreds. I don't care if you spent that time with a king in his castle or face down in a gutter. I still want to know everything."

"Fine," Desmond grumbled. "Only- I have a question."

"Yea?"

"Do you think it's possible to have something like the bleeding effect, without using an animus or anything?"

"I guess," Shaun said. "I mean, it's possible. The memories are all there in the DNA. I don't know much about all that, though. You'd have to ask Rebecca-"

"It's completely possible."

Desmond jumped, and Shaun swore loudly as Rebecca settled herself between the two of them. "Mostly just in dreams and things, but sometimes people will hallucinate and go crazy and things. Why?"

Because he'd been having dreams a long time before he'd ever heard of the animus, and now that he knew what the bleeding effect was, he'd sort of started to wonder…

"How long have you been listening?" Shaun demanded.

"A while," Rebecca said. "Your conversation seemed more interesting than what I was doing."

"You can't just eavesdrop on whomever you want!" Shaun protested.

"Come on." Rebecca rolled her eyes. "You were talking about time travel, of course I'm going to listen-"

"It's fine, Shaun," Desmond said wearily. "If she already knows there's no point in lying."

"Should we tell Lucy?" Rebecca asked.

"No," Desmond said, before he even had a chance to think about the question. "She's not… I don't know." He'd only known her a few days, but he got the impression she wouldn't take this information quite as calmly as Shaun and Rebecca seemed to be doing. "Maybe we can tell her later," he added, more to appease the suddenly worried looking Rebecca than anything else.

"Fair enough," said Rebecca.

"Yes," Shaun said impatiently. "But can we just get back to it now?"

Desmond shrugged, and picked up his story where he'd let off.

-/-

1720

-/-

Desmond found Jenny after the funeral, sitting next to her mother's graveside and twisting her hands quietly in her lap. She barely seemed to notice he was there, and he didn't know what to say. Her grandfather glanced over at the pair of them, but for once said nothing. Maybe he was too distracted by the death of his only daughter to drive Desmond away. Or maybe, for once, he was more concerned with Jenny's feelings than his own.

"I brought flowers," Desmond said at last. "Um… I guess that's what you do at funerals. Only it seemed kind of pointless to drop perfectly good flowers down a hole in the ground, so…" he offered up the white flower he'd been told to bring. It felt kind of stupid, giving a girl flowers, but Jenny wasn't just any girl, and after all her mother had just died.

She smiled a little, and reached to take the flower from him. For a little while she twirled the stem between her fingers, apparently lost in thought. Then she looked up at Desmond, a weird golden light in her eyes. "Do you still want to run away?" she asked. "Go on adventures, find pirates?"

"Sure," Desmond said. He hadn't given it much thought, really, after that one afternoon when he'd brought it up for the first time. "But- now?"

"I can't stay here," Jenny said. "Not with mother gone."

Desmond made a tiny noise that she didn't seem to even notice, luckily enough. He'd never much liked Caroline Scott himself. She had always seemed cold and sort of far away, but maybe that was just the sickness. Jenny obviously loved her, though, so Desmond didn't say anything.

"You'll come with, won't you?" Jenny asked.

"Of course," Desmond said. Jenny was the first person he'd met after leaving the Farm, and he couldn't imagine life there without her. But at the same time- he had a sort of life here, one that he liked a lot better than his old one, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to risk losing it.

Jenny jumped up, and Desmond followed a little more slowly. "Let's go then," she said. "Let's leave. Now."

Desmond shook his head. "We need to talk to your grandma first."

"What?" Jenny glanced over her shoulder, toward mother's mother, Elizabeth Scott. "Why?"

"Your other grandmother," Desmond said, with more patience than he felt.

"Oh," Jenny said. "Grandma Kenway. Yea, okay. She didn't come to the funeral, did she?"

Desmond shook his head. "She said it would make the Scotts angry," he said. "Because of- I don't know. Whatever happened with your dad."

Jenny sighed. "I wish someone would just tell me what happened to him," she said quietly, allowing Desmond to lead her away.

They found Linette Kenway in her tiny kitchen, a bowl of something that looked suspiciously like vegetables on the table in front of her and a sad look on her face. Desmond gave the vegetables a panicked look (he'd had enough of those in the last two years to last a lifetime), but to his relief the vegetables were quickly forgotten as Linette moved to comfort her granddaughter.

"I'm so sorry about your mother," she said, and Jenny sniffled a little, wiping her nose with a sleeve of her dress.

"We're going to run away," she said. "Me and Desmond. We're going to find adventure. Somewhere else. Far away."

"Really, now?" Linette said, and gave Desmond a look over the top of Jenny's head. _You should know better_, that look seemed to say. "Where do you think you're going to go?"

"Dunno," Jenny said. She crossed her arms and frowned at her grandmother. "Anywhere."

"Absolutely not," said Linette.

"Grandma!"

"I've already lost a son," she said. "I'm not letting you two run off as well."

"But-"

"And that's final," Linette said. "Jenny, I know you're upset. But you'll recover. The grief will pass."

"It won't," Jenny said, but there were no more arguments that day.

-/-

1738

-/-

"Your mother died?" Haytham asked.

"Yea…" Jenny wasn't looking at him now. She'd wanted this conversation to go differently. This whole day, really. She'd wanted to come back and rescue him from the templars that had managed to get their hooks into him. She'd thought maybe he would be resentful, that he could have been brainwashed already. But now they were just sitting around, talking over tea like this was an absolutely ordinary meeting.

"I'm sorry," Haytham said. "I never even wondered… I should have-"

"You were young," Jenny said. "You had your mother. And your father. Why should you be worried about me?"

"You're my sister," Haytham said, and Jenny frowned. He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, but it had taken her nearly four whole years to come back to London after Edward died. She hadn't even thought about him, any more than she would any other distant acquaintance.

"It's getting dark," Jenny said, glancing out the window. "I should go."

"Oh." Haytham looked down at the table too, then up at Jenny, then very quickly out of the window. "Do you think- can we do this again?"

"What?" Jenny forced a laugh, on the off-chance he was being funny. "You want to hear more of my stupid stories?"

"Sure," Haytham said. "Why not?"

And that's when she realized- he was lonely. He was a thirteen year old boy with a dead father, whose sister had suddenly reappeared in his life. And she was going to leave again. He must be very lonely indeed if he was willing to listen to her babble on. "I'm staying with friends," Jenny said. "Not far from here. They'd be more than willing to put you up for the night, if you-"

"Okay," Haytham said, and Jenny sighed. Yea, he was desperate.

So off they went- Jenny was staying with an elderly couple, whose sons were both assassins. They had nothing to do with the order themselves, but they were sweet and always accommodating. When Jenny explained her brother had come to visit with her for a while, they were more than eager to have him over for the night.

There was room in the guestroom where Jenny was staying for Haytham, so that was where he ended up. "Are you going to tell me more?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. "If you want."

He nodded, and so they began.

-/-

Later, Jenny got a letter.

It wasn't addressed to her, but she read it anyway, because it had been sent to her mother and her mother was dead. It wasn't the first letter Caroline Scott had received after her death- there were all sorts of distant relatives and old friends who had written her before she died, and with post being as slow as it was, a lot of it came very late. But this letter was different.

It came from her father.

Her grandfather took the letter before Jenny had a chance to read it, but Jenny stole it back again and shut herself in her room to read it away from prying eyes. It was slow going, because Jenny hadn't been spending as much time with her lessons as she should have been, but she managed it in the end. The letter was written in a coarse hand, one that obviously didn't write much more often than Jenny read, and she felt a warm kind of glow inside her at the idea of having something in common with him.

The letter read-

_Caroline-_

_I haven't written to you in a long time, and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for a lot of things, really, but most of all I'm sorry I went away for so long. When I left, I promised I would be back in two years, and it's been a lot longer than that. Well, I'm writing to tell you that I want to come home to you, if you still want me. I've made a lot of mistakes since we parted, I'll not lie about that._

_It's time to come home._

At the bottom of the letter were a few scribbled lines explaining where letters could be sent, and underneath that, the name Edward.

Edward. Jenny repeated the name to herself over and over during the next few days, as she wandered the house in a sort of fog, her mind totally focused on this stranger who was her father. She'd never even known his name until the letter came- even her mother seemed happy to pretend he'd never existed, like he was a bad mistake, best forgotten and not talked about.

She waited two months before writing Edward back, two months of careful practice with her letters to make sure she could say what she needed. Even with the practice, it took her half a dozen tries before she managed to get it right.

_My name is Jennifer Scott_, the letter began. That was the easy part.

_My mother's name was Caroline Scott, and I think you are my father. _She tried this sentence over and over again, trying to make the words sound grown up. In the end, though, she gave up and wrote it straight to the point.

_If no one's told you, my mother died three months ago. She never read your letter, but I took it from my grandfather before he could throw it in the fire. I thought…_ And Jenny spent a very long time thinking the next part over before actually writing it down. _If you wanted, I could go live with you._

She signed her name and sealed it in an envelope. She still wasn't happy with the way the words looked, but they weren't going to get any better, and she didn't think she could wait any longer. Finally, Jenny took her letter and her father's to the Kenway farm.

"I'm sending this to my father," Jenny said to her grandmother, when she had handed over both letters for her to read. "Can you help me?"

Linette Kenway did not answer for a very long time, not until she had read Edward's letter several times, and then Jenny's several more. She looked very pale, and a little bit angry. At first, she assumed her grandmother would say no, but eventually she sighed and shook her head. "Alright," she said. "I'll send this on it's way. I don't think it's a good idea, mind you, but I'd rather see you with my son than with your mother's people."

Jenny nodded, and hugged her grandmother with as much force and excitement as she could manage. "Thank you!"

"Don't thank me yet," the woman said, holding Jenny tightly. "It might not work out as well as you think it will."

"It has to be better than being stuck up here," Jenny said, and heard her grandmother sigh.

"You really are your father's daughter," she said.

A soft noise behind her made Jenny look up, at Desmond standing in the doorway, frowning. "You're leaving?" he asked.

"Yes," Jenny said.

"Oh," Desmond said, and left without another word. Jenny didn't think about it again that day. Later, though, she would remember.


	4. Chapter 4

**For some reason there are three versions of this chapter on my computer. I'm fairly sure I picked the right one but if there's something wrong please feel free to review and let me know!**

**-/-**

2012

-/-

After Rebecca came into the secret, she insisted they make some time every day for Desmond to tell them something about his time in the past. Usually they didn't have time for much, and Desmond would just share something funny that had happened while he was there, or some detail or other he thought would be interesting. It was actually nice to finally get some of this out on the open, although he didn't much want to keep on with his own story. No- better to keep to safe subjects for now.

"Did you know your accent slips sometimes?" Rebecca asked one night. They were in Monteriggioni by this point, which smelled like sewage and was haunted by the ghosts of Desmond's ancestors. Ezio's life was so unavoidably stamped on every brick and tile of the place, Desmond thought it was a miracle he hadn't completely lost his mind. Yet. It got easier the more time he spent talking about himself, and his own childhood, and so he'd stopped protesting when the other two insisted on hearing more.

"It what?" Desmond asked.

"Most of the time you have an American accent," Rebecca said. "But then sometimes you slip and it sounds more Welsh-"

"Oh!" Desmond laughed a little. "I mean, I sort of grew up in Swansea. And other places. I lost my accent when I was a kid, but then when I came back to this century I tried to cover it up. It just didn't seem right… but then sometimes when I'm thinking back on that time I just…"

"Oh yea," Shaun said. "I remember, when we first met you sounded different." Then he frowned. "Hang on. Where are 'other places'? Did you leave Swansea at some point?"

"Yea…" Desmond sighed. "Yea, I'll tell you."

-/-

1721

-/-

Jenny had been gone for nearly six months when Linette Kenway died. Desmond went to the funeral alone, and spent the whole time wishing she were there with him. There were a lot of people at the burial- she had been a well-liked woman, who had no trouble making friends with everyone she met. After the burial, half the town came by- some to see about farm business, some to tell Desmond how sorry they were about her death.

Desmond was eight years old, with no family and no friends to take him in or tell him where to go next. He very much wanted someone to just give him a direction- go that way, take this path, find that person- but no one did.

In the end, it was a dream that made his decision for him. A little more than a week after the funeral, a raging storm passed through Swansea. It was bad, worse than any storm Desmond had ever seen- apart from the one on the night he'd arrived in the sheep barn, lost and confused and not knowing that his life was about to change forever.

The dream was nothing like a normal dream.

He was on an island, a beautiful, warm island that felt amazing after years of Swansea weather. It was bright and sunny there, a perfect summer's day, and somehow just… real. He felt like he was actually there, not just dreaming of the place. For a while he just stood there, staring around in awe. He lost track of time, but was eventually startled out of his reverie when a man came walking up the cliff behind him, throwing himself to the ground next to Desmond with a sort of cheerful carelessness.

"Oh," Desmond said, backing away a little. "Sorry, I-"

But the man didn't even seem to have noticed Desmond. Instead, he turned back to look over his shoulder, calling out for someone just behind him. A minute or so later, a girl came running up after him, her hair doing its best to escape from a single braid down her back. And Desmond knew her.

"Jenny?" he asked, hardly daring to believe his eyes. Obviously it was Jenny (Desmond had never met anyone quite like Jenny; she was unmistakable), but she looked different from the last time Desmond had seen her. Her face was red from the sun, and she smiled brightly, her whole self radiating more happiness than Desmond could ever remember seeing from her before.

She didn't hear him, either, but when she sat down next to the strange man, Desmond cautiously settled himself on the ground at her side.

"You're too fast," Jenny complained. "My legs are smaller."

"Then you need to run faster," the man said.

"Dad!"

Dad. Of course, she must be on the island with her father. Although Desmond had no idea where that island was, or why. It looked like a nice place, and Jenny seemed happy, and her father seemed okay. He should have been happy to see Jenny so happy, but Desmond couldn't stop himself from feeling more miserable the longer he sat there, listening to the two of them talking together. He didn't want to wake up, and be alone again in the empty sheep farm.

-/-

2012

-/-

"That's the kind of dream I was talking about," Desmond said. "Remember, when I asked about the bleeding effect coming from sources other than the animus?"

"But that would mean you actually are related to them," Shaun said. "The Kenways, I mean."

"I guess," Desmond said. "I'd like to think so, anyway. They were better people than my real family."

"Did you have dreams like that a lot?" Rebecca asked.

"Maybe half a dozen times overall," Desmond said. "Only once in this century, but that…" he shook his head. That had been a dream, not a nightmare. He didn't want to talk about it. "Anyway. That was when I decided it was time to leave."

-/-

1721

-/-

When Desmond woke up the next morning, the bottoms of his feet were crusted over with dried sand, an impossible souvenir of a place he had never been to. He picked at his toes idly, cleaning the sand off them and slowly forming a plan. Now that Jenny was gone and Linette Kenway dead, he had no real reason to stay. But with no other friends or family, there was nowhere else in Europe he could hope to go. The only place he wanted to be was on that island with Jenny. She was the best friend he'd ever had, and now that she had gone, he had no idea what to do with himself.

He couldn't stay on the sheep farm, anyway. That would go to some distant relatives of Linette, a large family who had already made it clear they had no place for Desmond, and that he should leave as soon as possible. So that, Desmond decided, was what he would have to do. He would write to Jenny, and say… something. Beg a place, maybe. He wasn't looking for charity. He had no problem with working for a place, just as long as that place was _there _instead of _here_.

This decided, Desmond jumped out of bed and made for the kitchen of the farmhouse. The distant relations were due to come sometime during the next week, which left Desmond with very little time to do what he needed to do. He spent the rest of the day digging through every drawer and cupboard of the place, looking for the letter Jenny's father had sent to her mother. It took most of the morning, but he finally found it in an empty drawer near the pickling jars. The letter was all by itself, a single reminder to Linette Kenway of a distant son. It was a sad sight, but Desmond barely spared a thought for that now. He was just glad Jenny hadn't taken the letter with her.

Next, he went looking for something to write on and with, which took much less effort, and sat down at the ancient kitchen table to write. He'd been practicing a lot since Jenny left, with the kind of half formed idea that it might be a good skill to have someday, and anyway he had nothing else to do.

_Dear Jenny,_

_I'm writing because your grandmother is dead. Not the mean one, the one you liked. Sorry. I wanted to know if there's any room for me at wherever you are? I don't have anywhere else to go._

_-Desmond_

He glared at the letter, frustrated and not sure what to do. He wanted his letter to sound… better than this. More sympathetic. Less like a beggar. Just- better. For a while he chewed on the knuckle of his forefinger, trying to figure out what to add or take out or change. In the end, he settled on a simple postscript.

_PS- It's boring here without you_


	5. Chapter 5

1738

-/-

Haytham didn't leave.

He never told her why, and Jenny never asked. He stayed even when she moved on, from England to Paris and then on to Asia, a continent she'd never visited and did not know at all. He told her everything that had happened to him since she left five years ago, and in return she told him… nothing at all.

Finally the day came when Haytham flat out asked her for more of the story. "You're not interested, are you?" Jenny asked. "Not really?"

"I want to know the whole thing," Haytham said. "It makes you sad, and I want to know why."

"Because…" Jenny let out a frustrated noise. "That's what happens when you lose someone important. Even remembering the good times can make you sad."

Haytham chewed on that for a while. Then he said, "I remember Desmond."

"I hope so," Jenny snorted. "He helped change your diapers the same as all the rest of us."

Haytham turned a funny shade of pink before going on. "I mean- it's weird to find out that he wasn't even from this time. I still don't know if I can believe it. I always thought he was so normal. I liked him."

"I liked him too," Jenny said quietly.

"Obviously," Haytham snorted.

-/-

1722

-/-

Jenny spent a week solid watching the horizon for ships. Her father laughed at her, teased that she was too young to have boys chasing her across the ocean (but there was a hint of iron in his voice). He never stopped her from watching and waiting, though, and sometimes even came to join her. Sometimes Jenny wondered who he was waiting for, but the one time she asked, Edward only smiled sadly and said the friends he was waiting for were ones he would never see again. "Not in this life, anyway."

So Jenny didn't ask again.

On her eighth day of waiting, she finally saw a ship (not a boat, as Edward kept telling her). It came into sight early in the morning, and Jenny barely even blinked until just past noon, when she finally decided the ship really was headed for the island. Sometime ships just passed them by without stopping, but this one was different. Jenny recognized the flag and knew it belonged to one of her father's friends- he'd been planning a trip from Europe to the Caribbean anyway, and offered to take Desmond along as long as he was headed in that direction.

Jenny very badly wanted to know what that business was- she normally wouldn't have cared, but Edward was so annoyingly _secretive _about the whole thing. It was really driving her crazy, and later, she promised herself, she would get the answer out of someone. Right now, she had other things on her mind.

She'd been on the island for over a year by now, and most of its wonders had become almost commonplace by now. Today they seemed all new, because all Jenny could think of was what to show Desmond first when she finally saw him again.

And finally, after what felt like hours and hours of waiting, he stepped off the ship. Jenny very nearly didn't recognize him. He was taller than she was, now (which annoyed her), and badly sunburnt all over (which pretty much made up for the growth spurt). He looked tired, and Jenny saw fresh calluses on his fingers, but when he saw her he smiled and it was just like it had always been. Better, really, because finally her mother and grandparents weren't looking over her shoulder and telling her to make better choices in her friends. There was only Edward, who Jenny had started to suspect was the reason behind all those hints about 'better friends'. He wasn't exactly the kind of man her grandparents would have liked.

Jenny, on the other hand, thought he was the most amazing person she had ever met.

"You sound happy," Desmond said, when Jenny had finished with her tour of the island.

"I am," Jenny said. "It's good here. Dad wants to go to England, but I want to stay. What do you think?"

"It's…" Desmond cocked his head a little, thinking hard. "Big," he says at least. "And hot, and sandy."

"I know," Jenny said, a little impatient. "But what do you think?"

Desmond shrugged. "It's okay."

Jenny made a noise of frustration, and a face. "You don't like it," she said.

"I like it better than Swansea," Desmond said. "It's lonely there."

"You always seemed to like it when I was there," Jenny said, and Desmond turned a weird, reddish color.

"Well, yea," he said. "You were there. Now you're here."

And Jenny had nothing at all to say to that.

-/-

2012

-/-

Lucy had started to get suspicious.

She kept cornering one or another of her colleagues, asking pointed questions about why exactly they kept closeting themselves in odd corners of the sanctuary and talking late into the night.

"It's none of your business," Desmond said, for the hundredth time.

"It just worries me when you keep secrets," Lucy said. "We're on the run, the templars have already found us once, and-"

"It's nothing important," Desmond said. Lied, really. It was just that the more Lucy pressed him for answers, the less he wanted to give them to her.

"It obviously is," Lucy argued. "Or you wouldn't spend so much time doing… whatever it is you're doing. Why can't you just tell me?"

She leaned in too close as she said it, and Desmond took a step back. She was flirting, or trying to- only he wasn't interested, and she was insistent, and maybe that was the real reason he didn't want to tell her anything. It was obnoxious, that was all, almost like she was trying too hard.

"Because there's nothing to tell," Desmond said, and pushed away from her. That night, when he met again with Shaun and Rebecca, Lucy watched them go with a worried frown on her face. Probably Desmond should have taken more notice of that, but at the time he barely even noticed. The night went on much the same as it normally did, and soon Desmond had stopped thinking of Lucy at all.

-/-

Christmas on the island was a loud, half insane event, nothing at all like Desmond had ever seen before. For one thing, it was warmer than he was used to- it felt weird to wake up on December 25th and see sand on the ground instead of snow. But also it seemed like Christmas to the people on the island was an excuse to get a little more drunk and rowdy than usual. There was dancing and music until late at night, and enough food for a feast.

Jenny went to bed somewhere around midnight, but Desmond still felt wired and full of energy, and stayed out late. He found an out of the way place, somewhere that he could still hear the music and the sound of laughter in the distance, but still be on his own. From time to time men and women passed by in pairs or larger groups, disappearing into the darkness of the island to be alone. None of them seemed to notice Desmond, until at last Jenny's father appeared from- apparently- nowhere, and sat down next to him.

"What are you doing out here?" Edward asked.

"Nothing," Desmond said, half ducking away from the man. It wasn't that he didn't like Edward- he was actually pretty cool, but he was also Jenny's dad. He seemed half convinced that Desmond _liked _Jenny, which was silly. She was his friend, but she was still a girl. Girls were gross.

For a few minutes Edward didn't say anything, and Desmond started to fidget a little. He wished he'd gone to bed already, but it was very obviously too late to back out now. Finally, he asked, "Did Jenny tell you we're leaving for England?"

"Yea," Desmond said. "She's pretty upset." Jenny was very upset- she'd spent at least a week ranting at Desmond about how little she wanted to go to England.

"I know," Edward said, with a quick smile- he always seemed to be smiling. "She told me. More than once."

"So... why are you going?" Desmond asked.

"Because she deserves better than this," Edward said, abruptly serious. "You'll understand someday, when you have children of your own."

"Ew," Desmond said. He wasn't having kids. No way.

"The point is, we're leaving for England," Edward said. "As soon as possible."

"Oh," Desmond said, softly.

"And I want you to come with us."

"You- what?" He shook his head, because there was no way that could be right. "Why?"

"Because of Jenny," Edward said. "All I want is a good life for her."

And Desmond couldn't pretend that he really understood. He didn't know why a life in England was better than a life on the island. He didn't get how he was supposed to help. But he wasn't going to complain, because he had followed her across one ocean already.

She was the only friend he had in the world, after all. The only one who knew he didn't _exactly _belong in this time and place. Losing her would have been like losing the last connection he had to his past. It wasn't a great past, but it was still his, and he didn't want to forget.


	6. Chapter 6

2012

-/-

"You had training as an assassin before this, didn't you?" Rebecca asked.

"Yea," Desmond said, just managing to get the word out through an enormous yawn. It was just past five in the morning- he was just getting up, and it looked like Rebecca had been awake all night. "Why?"

"You just look like someone that's been doing this for a long time," Rebecca said. "There's a kind of… attitude, I guess."

"Well, my dad had me running laps and starting with weapons when I was about four," Desmond said.

"Yea but after that?" Rebecca prodded. "Did you ever get any more training?"

Desmond nodded. "When I was ten, I-" then he stopped, shaking his head. "Actually, let's wait for Shaun," he said. "He'll be pissed if I start without him."

-/-

1723

-/-

London was nothing like Swansea, and it was nothing like the Island, either. It was cold and wet and crowded with people- Desmond didn't mind it, much, but Jenny hated everything about the city. "It's like everything's different now," she said to Desmond one rainy day. "We're supposed to pretend that we're all posh and respectable now. It's stupid!" And she gestured at the dress she was wearing. "How am I supposed to move in this, anyway?"

"I don't think you're supposed to," Desmond said, when he was sure she was done ranting.

"That's the point!" Jenny cried, then flopped down with her back firmly to the window. "It's this new woman he's courting. It's like she's trying to impress her or something." She shook her head, angry. "Let's do something, Desmond," she said.

"What?"

"Anything. As long as we're not just sitting around doing nothing."

Desmond frowned, torn. On the one hand, he was itching to do something too, but on the other hand… he was very aware that he was in London because Edward wanted him there. He had some work of his own around the house, but he knew full well that he could be kicked out on the street and replaced in a second. He didn't really think that was likely, but it was still possible. He wasn't anything special, after all.

"Come on," Jenny whined.

"But-"

"I can get in just as much trouble on my own as I can with you," Jenny said. "But it'll be more fun if you help."

"Fine," Desmond said. "What did you have in mind?"

Jenny jumped to her feet and immediately tripped over the hem of her dress. "First, pants," she said. "Can I borrow a pair of yours?"

"You're still taller than me," Desmond grumbled- he'd just had his tenth birthday, but Jenny was still nine. Plus she was a girl. She should definitely have been shorter than he was, not taller.

"I'll make it work," Jenny said, and the two of them hurried out of the room as quickly as her skirts would let them.

"What do we do after pants?" Desmond asked.

"We're going to be detectives," Jenny said. "My dad is keeping something a secret, and I want to know what it is."

"What kind of a secret?" Desmond asked.

"Well if I knew that…"

They found nothing at all that afternoon, although they had a great time hunting for secret passages and treasure maps. They managed to annoy absolutely everyone in the house, although Edward seemed like he was trying very hard not to laugh when he found them in the attic.

"What are you doing, anyway?" he asked.

"Looking for treasure," Jenny said, without missing a beat. She looked perfectly innocent at that moment, staring up at Edward with a cheerful smile, her hands behind her back. When Desmond started to interrupt and point out they'd actually been looking for whatever secrets Edward was keeping, she kicked him, hard, in the ankle.

"…right, then," Edward said. "Jenny, go down to dinner."

"But-"

"Now."

She went, grumbling slightly, and Edward looked at Desmond. "Are you going to tell me what the two of you were really doing?"

Desmond felt his face go red, but shook his head stubbornly. He wasn't going to sell Jenny out, even if it was over something dumb.

"Neither of you is in any trouble," Edward said. "If that makes any difference. But I don't like having secrets kept from me in my own house."

Desmond thought briefly of all the lies he had told already, but it really wasn't any of his business. Maybe that was why he caved- he had to say something, after all. "Jenny wanted to know what you did after you left her mother," he said. "She said you were keeping secrets from _her, _and she didn't like it much either."

Edward gave a snort of laughter. "Figures," he said. "Like father, like daughter. I'd do the same thing if I were her."

"Why don't you just tell her?" Desmond asked. "What were you doing that was so bad?"

He didn't really expect an answer- honestly, he'd started to believe Jenny was overreacting, and that there wasn't any deep, dark secret in his past. But there was something in the way Edward looked at him- a long, considering kind of look- that made Desmond feel really weird.

"How old are you?"

"Ten," Desmond said. "I just had my birthday."

"Ten," Edward repeated. "I guess that's old enough."

"Old enough for what?" Desmond asked.

And Edward told him. It was an incredible story- so fantastic, in fact, that he could barely believe it was true. Pirates and treasure and- and assassins. Desmond hadn't even heard that word since leaving the Farm, and he didn't much like hearing it again now. But Edward's stories were nothing like what he had experienced with his parents. Desmond remembered being trapped inside a lot, and never leaving the Farm because apparently the rest of the world was full of dangers he could barely dream of. The story Edward told was sad and violent and not always nice, but it was exciting, too.

"Why are you telling me?" Desmond asked, after Edward had finished. "I mean- Jenny's the one that wanted to know."

Edward didn't answer, just gave Desmond a look that made it clear he was lucky to be getting this explanation at all. "There's a point to all this," Edward added. "There are a lot of people out there who want me dead."

"Oh," Desmond said. "That… sounds bad."

"Very bad," Edward said.

"But you can fight them, right?" Desmond asked.

"That's the plan," said Edward. "But I've been thinking lately. About the future, and what's going to happen to Jenny when I'm gone."

"What?" Desmond said, startled. "You think they'd hurt her because they don't like you?"

"I think there's a chance," Edward said. Desmond's stomach seemed to suddenly clench up tight like a fist inside him, and he shook his head emphatically.

"No way," Desmond said. "I won't let that happen. Not ever."

Edward nodded, like Desmond had just given him an answer he already knew to be true. "I thought so," he said. "And I think we may have more to talk about today."


	7. Chapter 7

1738

-/-

"You're an assassin," Haytham informed Jenny over breakfast one day.

She gave him a careful look across the table, chewing slowly to save herself from saying something stupid. In the end, she decided on- "Yes."

"Oh."

"But you knew that already," Jenny said. "I told you months ago."

"I know," Haytham said. "But I've been thinking about it. Assassins killed dad. They-"

Jenny laughed (and she knew instantly it was the wrong thing to do because Haytham stiffened and frowned). "Sorry," she said. "It's not really funny, only… it was templars that killed dad. Not assassins."

"But they told me…" Haytham trailed off, obviously confused.

"Why would assassins kill him?" Jenny asked. "Dad was one of them."

Her brother sat there with a look on his face like he was trying to realign his whole world view in light of this new information. Then, after a while, he said, "Tell me how you became one of them."

"What, an assassin?"

"Yes."

-/-

1725

-/-

Jenny cornered Desmond on the morning of the wedding (or, as she had come to think of it in her mind, _The Wedding_). She was already angry, because the dress she was supposed to wear was huge and bright and lacy, and because she hadn't had a chance for breakfast before being forced into the monstrosity. Seeing Desmond was just the final straw.

She waited until the two of them were alone, and practically manhandled him into an out of the way room, where they wouldn't be spotted by any of the guests staying at the house- Tessa's family, mostly. Jenny was the only family Edward had anymore, and obviously she was there already. Still, parts of the house were still empty, and there was no one around when Jenny crossed her arms over her chest and gave Desmond the angriest glare she could manage.

"What?" he demanded.

"What do you mean, 'what'?" Jenny snapped. "You disappear for almost six months, and when you come back you're all…" she waved a hand vaguely, trying to think of a way to describe what had happened to Desmond. He was just different, that was all. Confident, maybe, and he looked like he'd been in a fistfight or two, recently.

"It's nothing," Desmond said. "Your dad wanted me to do something, so I-"

"Do what?" Jenny asked. "Where did you go?"

"I can't tell you," Desmond said, but he didn't sound very certain, and Jenny was absolutely sick of having secrets kept from her.

"Can't, or won't?" she asked. "We used to keep secrets from other people, remember? When we weren't supposed to even see each other, we'd sneak out and spend the whole day running around Swansea-"

Desmond frowned. "It wasn't my idea," he said, and his voice was half a whine as he said it.

"Come on, Des," Jenny said. "Just tell me!"

And although he hesitated for a moment, he did exactly that. The story came out in an ambling, aimless way, because Desmond had a habit of jumping ahead to the exciting parts, then going back to explain how it all made sense. Eventually, though, Jenny had all the details. Edward's time with the assassins, and his recent recruitment of Desmond. "That's where you've been all this time?" she asked. "With these assassins?"

"In Scotland," Desmond said. "Later this month I'm leaving for France."

"You're leaving again?" Jenny asked, and it was a real effort to keep her disappointment out of her voice and off her face.

Desmond nodded, and at least he didn't look too happy about it, either. "There are assassins all over Europe," he said. "All over the world. I'm supposed to be learning from them."

"That's stupid," Jenny said. "If my dad's one of them, why doesn't he just teach you? Then you wouldn't have to leave all the time."

"I don't think he wants you to know about all this," Desmond said.

"So he thinks I need someone else to protect me?" Jenny snorted. "I'm going to talk to him. As soon as the wedding's over."

"What are you going to say?"

"That he can do your training himself," Jenny said. "And mine, too. Then we'll both know how to fight, and you won't have to leave."

"I don't want to leave," Desmond said.

"Then don't go," Jenny said. "Everyone else here is boring, Desmond. It's awful when you're gone."

He turned a really impressive shade of red, and didn't say anything at all.

-/-

Actually, it was over a week before Jenny had a chance to talk to Edward. He wasn't avoiding her, but after the wedding he and Tessa went away for a few nights, to be alone and enjoy being married. Jenny had a vague idea of what that meant, thanks to a couple of stableboys a few years older than her, and she wanted nothing to do with stuff like that.

She gave it a couple of days after that before she confronted Edward with what Desmond had told her. They were alone at the time, having breakfast at the wooden table in the kitchen, at half past five in the morning. Jenny had always been an early riser, and her father had a habit of staying up all night and going to bed with the sunrise.

Jenny loved the mornings when they were the only ones awake, and they raided cupboards and cabinets until they find something edible. It was something just the two of them had to share together, and Jenny let Edward get comfortable before putting down her food on the table and giving him a glare.

"What?" he asked. "What did I do this time?"

He was very obviously teasing her, and Jenny was not in the mood to be teased. "That's not funny," she said. "I want to know why you told Desmond everything, but you never told me _anything_."

"Jenny-"

"And why you're acting like you need to teach him to protect me, when you could just as easily teach me to protect myself."

"You don't know-"

"If it's because I'm a girl, then that's just stupid," Jenny went on. She knew that if she gave him a chance to talk, she'd lose her nerve and would never be able to start talking again. "Because I could kick his butt anyway."

He laughed at her.

"What?" Jenny demanded. "What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing," Edward said. "You're absolutely right. You're as capable as Desmond is of doing this- but you're my daughter, and all I want to do is keep you safe."

"That's stupid," Jenny said again. "How is relying on other people going to be safer than being able to protect myself?" She shook her head. "I want to learn everything, and I want you to teach me. Us. Desmond too, I mean. It has to be easier to stay here than to go running all over Europe."

Edward wasn't laughing anymore- instead, he was giving her a serious, considering look that made her feel like he could see right through her. "Alright then," he said, and Jenny very nearly let her jaw drop. She hadn't expected him to actually agree, with her, not in a million years.

"You may regret this, one day," Edward said.

But Jenny was ten years old, and she had no way of knowing what would come later. Even if she had known, she would not have understood. So she simply smiled, and thanked her father, and counted herself the winner in that particular battle.


	8. Chapter 8

2012

-/-

The bleeding effect was getting worse. Every night now, he woke up with his throat sore from screaming, and the memories of nightmares that did not belong to him. He knew the others had started to worry about him, but no one said anything. Maybe they just weren't sure how to start, or they thought mentioning it would only make things worse.

Desmond hated the silence.

It would have been so much easier if someone would just talk to him- if he could explain what he was seeing and thinking and feeling. But he didn't know how to broach the subject any more than the rest of them, until finally he decided on a less direct method of broaching the subject.

If he was right in his guess that the Kenways were his ancestors, then a few things he'd always sort of wondered about were suddenly clear. Like the winter of 1725- he hadn't understood what was wrong at the time… now he did. After all, he'd been living in the same house as his ancestor on the day he was born- of course it hadn't been fun.

So that was the part of his story he told that night when he met up with Shaun and Rebecca. And as he told it, he hoped they would realize that he was desperately asking for help.

-/-

1725

-/-

Desmond was sick in bed on the day Haytham Kenway was born. Later, Jenny would spend a great deal of time describing the process with incredible detail, which was nearly as bad as actually being there. But on the actual day, he was stuck in bed with a fever, tossing and turning while he went from freezing cold to sweating and then back again. He ached all over, and couldn't keep any food down.

And he was hallucinating, too, or dreaming terrible nightmares, or something. Visions that danced in front of him, almost taunting him as he fought to make them go away, or at least understand them. At times, the shouts and noises from Tessa's room down the hall seemed to merge into his dreams, so that he felt like he was actually there instead, and he had to bury his head in his pillow to keep himself from giving into the hallucinations and screaming out in pain, too. Finally, as the frenzied shouting gave way to a sort of relieved peace, Desmond fell into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke the next morning, he felt completely fine. A little sore from lying in bed all day, and definitely hungry, but fine. It was weird, but definitely better than a slow, painful recovery. So he shrugged and left the room to look for food.

It was still dark out- barely past midnight- and no one else was around. Even Edward, who usually stayed up all night, was apparently asleep, exhausted by the day's events. Desmond headed past his room on silent feet, trying not to wake him. He went downstairs, found something to eat, and was headed back upstairs when he realized he'd been wrong. There was someone else awake in the house.

He was in front of Tessa's room when he heard it, a quiet, sniffling sort of noise that took him several seconds to place- it was the baby, of course. Desmond hesitated in the doorway for a second before curiosity won out and he went quietly into the room. For the past nine months, he'd watched Tessa get slowly bigger and rounder, throwing up and craving strange foods and going to the outhouse much more often than usual. The whole process had seemed really gross and uncomfortable, and Desmond wanted to see the finished product for himself.

The baby was in a basket in a corner of the room, wrapped in a tight cloth and fussing slightly. He was small, and sort of smelled, and his face was all pinched up with tears. He squinted up at Desmond and started to cry quietly.

"Shh!" Desmond hissed, and reached into the bed, gathering the baby into his arms. "Don't cry. You're going to wake everyone up."

And to his surprise, the baby did quiet, his eyes closing slowly until he was asleep again, a tiny warm bundle in his arms. Maybe it was just the late hour, and the quiet of the house, but Desmond suddenly felt very solemn. He was holding another person, a tiny, helpless person who could barely even poop without help.

This baby could grow up to be anyone. He could be strong and brave like his father, or kind and understanding like his grandmother, or loyal and stubborn like his sister. Desmond had been lucky to find Jenny when he first came to this century- all the Kenways had been much kinder to him than he deserved, really. He had no doubt that whoever this kid grew up to be, the world would be a better place because he was there.

But for now- well, for now, the child was only a child, and Desmond put him back in his basket to sleep. Then he went to his own room, closing the door softly behind him as he left.

-/-

1738

-/-

Jenny noticed right away that when she got to the part of her story where Haytham was born, her brother got much more interested. It was kind of a relief, actually, because he'd been unnaturally quiet since their last conversation about assassins. Jenny had no idea what he was thinking, and didn't much want to. Mostly, she just wanted to see him happy again, the way he had been when they were younger.

He wasn't exactly happy now, but he was at least talking again.

"It's your birthday today," Jenny said cheerfully.

"I know," Haytham said. "Why do you mention it?"

"Cuz maybe a birthday is a big deal?" Jenny said. "I should have gotten you a present but I sort of forgot and it's not like I know what you'd want anyway."

"It's just a birthday," Haytham said. "Who cares?"

Jenny snorted and rolled her eyes. "You're terrible," she told him. "I remember, when you were a baby-"

"Yea?" His voice was suddenly eager, and he leaned halfway out of his chair.

"Why the sudden interest?" Jenny asked.

"I just…" He glance quickly down, then back up again. "I don't remember much from before dad died and you left to find Desmond. But they were happier times, weren't they?"

"Mostly," Jenny said. And she told him more.

-/-

1725

-/-

The Christmas after Haytham was born was the first holiday Jenny had really enjoyed since coming to London. Nothing could really compare to the year she'd spent Christmas on a Caribbean beach, surrounded by assassins and pirates, all reveling in a rare day without conflict.

London Christmases were cold, and quiet, and lonely. Jenny missed the crowds sometimes, and the chaos, although things had gotten better lately. She liked the daily lessons she and Desmond had with Edward, liked feeling herself grow more confident with the weapons and in her freerunning skills. She'd even started to like her stepmother (a little), and she liked Haytham rather a lot, even if he did spend most of his time crying and smelling like the backside of a privy.

He definitely made Christmas more interesting. Having a newborn in the house seemed to give everyone permission to be less formal, and for the first time, the house really feels like home. There was an air of family that Jenny wasn't really used to- it was almost like Haytham had been the missing link, and now that he was there, they could really be a family, together.

As the day wore on, and night began to creep into the house, Jenny found herself alone at the table, absolutely stuffed full of food and in a sleepy, almost dreamlike state as she watched the others. Her father and Tessa sat side by side next to the fireplace, talking in quiet voices that Jenny was too far away to overhear. Haytham slept nearby, his tiny face twitching slightly in his sleep.

Desmond sat by himself by the window, staring outside at the freshly fallen snow, and Jenny found herself watching him, taking advantage of his distraction to stare unabashedly. He was finally starting to grow a little, and soon he might even be taller than she was. He looked sort of like a broom these days, all skinny limbs with elbows and knees everywhere. There were pimples too, little red dots bursting out like mountains all over his face. She would have felt sorry for him, except that his awkward puberty didn't seem to matter as much as the way he smiled, and that hadn't changed at all.

Except for tonight- there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his expression was distant and sad. Too sad for Christmas, Jenny decided, and crossed the room to sit next to him.

"You okay?" she asked.

He jumped, then nodded sheepishly. "I didn't hear you come over," he said.

"You looked kind of out of it."

"Yea…" Desmond rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. "I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping lately."

"Sick?"

"Just nightmares," Desmond said. "They're sort of starting to get better, I guess. But… yea. Not too much fun."

"Oh," Jenny said. "Do you… do you want to talk about it?"

Desmond frowned and shook his head, but didn't say a word. Jenny sat too, and Desmond didn't complain. They just stayed there together in silence, watching the snow gather into great piles outside the window.

"Hey," Desmond said, after a half hour or so. They were alone by this point, since Tessa had gone up to put Haytham to bed, and Edward had followed after, making slightly off color jokes that Tessa would probably not be laughing at quite so much if she weren't a little bit tipsy.

"What?" Jenny asked.

"The snow's stopped," Desmond said. It seemed a completely innocent comment, but he smile when he said it in a way that made Jenny think that maybe he had something planned.

"And?"

"Let's go outside."

He didn't have to ask twice- in less than five minutes, the two of them were outside, throwing snow at each other and shrieking in laughter. It was pitch black outside, but both of them had eagle vision (Jenny's, of course, had gotten hers just before her mother died, while Desmond had struggled with his for nearly a year after Edward first brought it up during training). Jenny could see Desmond as a bright streak of blue, but the snow he threw at Jenny was practically invisible. It was chaotic and half mad, and Jenny could feel her face going red with the cold and her stomach hurt from laughing.

This really was the best Christmas she'd had in years.


	9. Chapter 9

2012

-/-

Rebecca came up to Desmond during lunch, his only break from the animus. She held a sheaf of papers in both hands, and shook so violently that they rustled against each other, making a noise like fallen leaves blowing against the ground. "Look," she said, and dumped the whole pile into his arms.

"What's all this?" he asked, leafing through them.

"Just read," Rebecca said, and so he did. At first, the papers didn't make much sense. They were terse, to the point and almost in code. They were filled with references to events and people and places Desmond knew nothing about, so that they didn't make much sense to him.

Gradually, he managed to figure out a few details.

The papers were hard copies of e-mails that had been sent through the e-mail server that had been set up in the hideout. Desmond hadn't used it much- he didn't have anyone on the outside he much wanted to keep in contact with, and there wasn't much point in sending an e-mail to people he saw every day.

Unless he was feeling really lazy. Which sometimes happened.

And so he recognized that was where the e-mails had come from. He even recognized one of the addresses as Lucy's. But the other one he didn't know, and at first he assumed it must be a member of one of the other assassin cells.

Except that didn't quite ring true.

Every move the four of them had made since Desmond and Lucy had left Abstergo was detailed in these e-mails. There were also plans for what they would do and where they would go if the templars found them again, and a huge amount of details about their everyday lives. Huge amounts of information, right down to what they ate at mealtimes and how many trips they made to the bathroom. It was ridiculous, really, and not _right_.

"She's been spying on us," Rebecca said. "All this time, she's been reporting everything we do to Abstergo." She pulled the last sheet of paper from the pile and moved it to the top. "Read this one."

_It's not working._

_I thought I was making some progress with Desmond before we left the labs, but ever since then he's more or less ignored me. I can't get him to like me, much less trust me. I don't think we're going to get much more information out of him like this. I'm calling it- send in your men the first chance we get, we need to bring him back in._

"She's going to-"

"Betray all of us," Rebecca said. "Lucky for us the e-mail's been down for the last couple of days. That one's been sitting in her outbox just waiting to send, but I found it first."

"Lucky us," Desmond said, and then looked up as Lucy came into the room. "Where's Shaun?"

"Out," Rebecca said. "Running errands. Why?"

"Lucy and I are going for a walk," Desmond said. "Let him know if he gets back first."

He didn't answer the questions Rebecca hissed at him as he led Lucy away, and he didn't answer Lucy's confused ones, either. In fact, he didn't say a single word as he led her to the villa's roof, just watched her carefully. She made the climb without any sign of strain, and the two of them stood side by side.

Desmond leaned back against a half fallen wall and stared at the sky. "It's a beautiful day," he observed.

"What?" Lucy shot him an exasperated glare. "Is that why we're out here? To enjoy the weather?"

"Of course not," Desmond said. "That would be ridiculous."

"Then why-"

"How long have you been working with the templars?"

Lucy let out a sigh, so long and loud that she seemed to deflate. "I guess there's no point denying it," she said. "Honestly the whole thing's been pretty awful. I'm not an assassin anymore. I don't want to be here."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before," Desmond said.

"I did," Lucy said. "I decided it would all be worth it in the end. I guess you're going to kill me now?"

Desmond shook his head. "It would be easy," he said. "But I don't do that."

She snorted. "An assassin who doesn't kill? That'll be the day."

"Like your lot's any better," Desmond said. "Anyway, it's really none of your business."

"So you won't kill me," Lucy said. "And I'm not going to stay. What happens next?"

"You leave," Desmond said. "I don't care where you go or what you do, just so long as you don't come back." He turned abruptly and leaped off the roof, landing safely at the bottom before Lucy could say a single word.

Shaun was back by the time he got inside, pacing anxiously as Rebecca watched.

"So?" he demanded. "What happened?"

"She's leaving," Desmond said. "We should move on, too."

"You didn't kill her," Shaun said. "Why?"

"Because…" Desmond bit his lip. "Well, I guess we had to get there at some point. Come on- let's start packing, and I'll explain."

-/-

1726

-/-

The funeral ended with a gunshot.

Well, it didn't really end- there was still a body to bury, after all, and the minister stayed behind with some of the family while most of the crowd-a half dozen of the man's associates- went running after the source of the noise. They ran through streets and up the sides of buildings, angry and determined to catch the man or woman who had fired the shots.

Assassin funerals, Desmond decided, were much more interesting than the normal kind. He'd come out of a sort of duty- the dead man was one of the assassins he'd been sent to for training, before Jenny found out and forced Edward to take over the task. He hadn't been the nicest old man, but he'd known his stuff and now he was dead.

And the templars had come to ruin his funeral, sent a gunman to fire into the crowd. Luckily, no one had been injured, and there was no way the man could escape, not with half the assassins of England on his tail. Only… Desmond stopped suddenly where he was, halfway up the side of a building, and bit his lip.

The templars, whatever else they might be, were not stupid. Why would they send one man to fire a gun into a crowd of assassins? They should have sent more, if they wanted to actually kill anyone. One man wasn't a threat. He was…

He was a distraction.

Desmond jumped without looking, falling a terrifying three stories in a true leap of faith. He'd done them before, of course- from higher places than this, even. But always under the supervision of somebody else, and never… _quite _like this. A true leap of faith was to jump without really knowing what waited at the end. Desmond had never quite believed it- the whole thing sounded a little dramatic to him- but here he was now, jumping because he sort of had an idea that there _should _be something below him to break his fall. He'd watched the streets as he ran, earlier. Maybe he'd seen something there, and maybe he hadn't. Either way, he hadn't really noticed it, and when he felt the familiar, scratchy softness of the haystack below him, Desmond almost cried out in shock.

But he didn't- he bolted out of the cart and made a dash for it down the street, back toward the churchyard where the funeral had been. He went as fast as he could, running like he had an eagle's wings on his feet. A horse pulling a large cart pulled out of nowhere and he vaulted over it, ignoring the driver's oaths.

Two blocks past that was the churchyard, looking much the same as it had been before the shooter.

Not exactly the same, though. The yard was nearly empty, since all the assassins were gone, out on a wild goose chase after a lone gunman who had only ever been a distraction. The only ones who remained were the dead man's relatives, a half dozen or so men and women with no connection at all to the assassins, and a young man Desmond had never seen before. Desmond knew without even checking in eagle vision that this man was an enemy. It didn't take much effort to figure out- men pointing weapons at innocents were rarely nice people.

"Hey!" Desmond shouted, running toward the little group. It was stupid and pointless and wouldn't do anything but get him killed along with the others, but he didn't know what else to do. "Stop it!"

The man looked up and laughed as Desmond slid to a halt in front of him, panting and staring at the gun that was now pointed at him. "Well then," he said. "Not all of you assassins are as stupid as you look. I have to tell you- watching you lot run after our scapegoat like a flock of startled chickens- it was the funniest thing I've seen in months."

"Why are you doing this?" Desmond asked.

"Because," the man said. He moved his arm, quick as lightning, and squeezed off two shots. _Bang! Bang! _Two bodies fell to the ground. Desmond shouted, a wordless, angry noise, but before he could say a word the man had dropped his empty gun and pulled another from his coat. "This man you've come to bury? He was a monster."

"He wasn't," said Desmond, and winced as the man fired off two more shots. (_Bang! Bang!_) He was shaking now, terrified and barely keeping himself together. There had been seven people still alive in the graveyard when he came running in. Now the only ones left were an elderly couple (the parents of the murdered man, maybe?), holding each other tightly in a kind of terrified silence. And the man with the gun, of course. The templar.

"He was an assassin," the man said, and fired again. Bang. Bang. Desmond yelled and jumped at him before the stranger could pull another gun. He'd come prepared, that much was obvious, but Desmond was angry now, angry and terrified because this wasn't fair, it really wasn't. Six innocents dead, all because of one man with a grudge.

He never quite knew how he killed the templar. After all, he didn't have a weapon on him, and he was at least a foot shorter and ten years younger than the other man. He could sort of remember wrestling something sharp away from the man, and he could remember staggering away, horrified to find his hands covered in blood. But he couldn't remember the bit in the middle, no matter how hard he tried.

And he was glad. The man would have killed him, the way he'd killed those six innocents, but still, to kill a man himself, it seemed… horrific. Monstrous. He'd known it was something he'd have to do as an assassin, someday, but he thought he'd be ready for it, somehow.

Now he knew he never would be.

-/-

1738

-/-

"But that's-" Haytham stopped abruptly, twisting a pencil around and around in his hands.

"That's what?"

"Crazy," Haytham said.

"A lot of people would say we're the crazy ones," Jenny said. "We kill people."

"It's a war," Haytham muttered, more like he was trying to convince himself more than convince her. For a second, in the way he looked at her across the table, Jenny could swear they were enemies again. Just an assassin and a baby templar in training. Then he sighed and blinked and looked away- the moment ended, and they were just two people eating breakfast and having a conversation.

"It's-" Jenny shrugged. "Well, it was the choice Desmond made anyway. I wouldn't have made it, but… well, the world would be a boring place if we were all the same."

"How does that even work, though?" Haytham asked.

"He just didn't kill people," Jenny said, and launched back into her story.

-/-

1726

-/-

Jenny went to see Desmond in his room sometime around midnight. Edward had told her not to. He'd said Desmond needed to be alone, after the massacre at the funeral. But Jenny didn't want to leave him alone. She wanted to be with him, because he was her best friend, and she'd seen him when he came home with his hands covered in blood and an awful, dead look in his eyes.

He looked up when Jenny came in, but didn't say anything. Jenny didn't say anything either, just sat down next to him on his bed. The silence stretched on for a very long time, but after a while, Desmond took her hand and squeezed, tightly.

"I never want to do that again," he said. "I'm not a killer. I can't- I feel sick."

"He deserved it," Jenny said softly. "I heard dad talking about it downstairs. The man was crazy, but a lot of templars were listening to him. A lot of other assassins would have died if he'd lived. And a lot of innocents."

"It doesn't matter," Desmond said. "I don't care if he was standing in the middle of a crowd of babies with a machine gun."

"A what?"

Desmond went right on, ignoring her. "I shouldn't have killed him. I just feel... This isn't right. Okay? There's a man dead tonight who was alive this morning, and he's dead because of me. I can't stand that."

"So you... What, you want to leave the assassins?" Jenny asked, and she felt something cold rush through her at the thought. She didn't want Desmond to leave.

"No," Desmond said. "I see what we're supposed to be fighting for, you know? Freedom, the right for people to make their own choices. And I guess... I mean maybe Templars have to die for that to happen. I don't know."

Jenny squeezed his hand more tightly. He suddenly sounded very grown up and very sad all at once, and she didn't know what to say to make it better.

"But I know I can't do that again," Desmond said. "I can't kill anyone else. There has to be another way to fight."

"I'm sure there is," Jenny said, tone doubtful and only half convinced.

And neither of them spoke again for the rest of the night.


	10. Chapter 10

1739

-/-

As winter slowly began to fade into spring, Haytham seemed to warm up along with the weather. By the time the last of the snow had vanished, he seemed downright cheerful. One night, instead of allowing Jenny to ramble her way through her memories as they occurred to her, he asked for something specific.

"What was I like when I was a baby?"

Jenny straight up laughed at him, and for once he smiled back instead of scowling at her. "What?" he asked. "I want to know!"

"Why?" Jenny asked. "You weren't anything special. You did a lot of pooping and crying and crawling around…"

Haytham elbowed her playfully, and Jenny obligingly rooted through her memories until she found something worth telling. It wasn't that she hadn't spent any time with her brother when he was a baby, it was just that he really had spent most of his time soiling his pants and crying. He wasn't that much more interesting than any other baby, and most of the strong memories Jenny had of him were tied into other important events, or particular conversations.

Well, he would just have to be happy with what she remembered.

-/-

1727

-/-

Jenny leaned against the wall of the nursery, trying to fight the smile on her face. There had been a lot to smile over lately, and her face had gotten used to the expression. A lot had changed recently. Ever since Desmond had killed the templar at the funeral- more than fourteen months ago now- their training had taken a subtly different form. Up until then, Desmond's progress had always been more important than Jenny's. Not in any really obvious ways, but Edward had never quite been able to let go of the idea that Jenny somehow needed protecting.

Except that now Desmond had decided he didn't have it in him to kill, and he spent more of his time on other subjects. He spent his time gathering information, finding out what the templars were doing and why. It was more of a support role, but it seemed to suit him. He was definitely happier, and since Jenny was getting more combat training now, she was happier as well.

"What are you smiling for?" Desmond asked, glancing up at her. "This is serious business."

Jenny snorted before she could stop herself, and dropped to the ground next to him, settling in a cross legged position. "I don't think you really get the point of babysitting," she said. "You don't have to sit there and stare at him the whole time."

"Hmm," Desmond said, and went back to staring at Haytham. "I don't know. I think he might make a bolt for it any second."

"He's not even two," Jenny protested. "He's not physically capable of bolting. The best he could manage would probably be a toddle."

"It's a cunning deception," Desmond admitted. "How about it, Haytham?"

The toddler made a happy sounding noise and grinned toothily, before rolling over and examining his toes with apparent fascination.

"Yea," Jenny said. "He's a real escape artist."

"Alright," Desmond grumbled. "You win. But seriously, who do you think your dad's going to blame if anything happens to him? Because I'm pretty sure it would be me."

"You worry too much," Jenny said. "He'll be fine."

Desmond shrugged, but didn't look particularly reassured. "Do you ever think what it would be like to have kids?" he asked.

"No," Jenny said. "Why, do you?"

"Sometimes," Desmond admitted. "It looks hard. I mean, you have this whole human being that can't do anything for itself, so you have to make sure nothing happens to it, and that it grows up okay and learns how to take care of itself, and then after all that it probably doesn't even like you."

"I think most kids like their parents," Jenny said, cautiously. She wasn't quite sure where Desmond was going with this.

"I guess," Desmond said. Then, softly- "That must be nice."

"You never told me about your parents," Jenny said.

"I didn't like them much," Desmond said.

"I know they're assassins," Jenny said, when he didn't say anything else. "You told me that ages ago."

"Yea," Desmond said. "But I think... It was different on the Farm. It wasn't the same then as it is now- there was this feeling like we were being hunted all the time. There weren't many assassins left, I guess. We lived on this compound, guarded all the time, and everyone was taught to defend themselves. I mean, I was five when I left, and my dad had already started me on some basic training. It was a pretty grim life."

"I'm sorry," Jenny said, and she was. Her own childhood hadn't been the brightest days, especially with her mother sick in bed for most of it, but at least she hadn't been a prisoner. "Are you glad you're here instead of there?" she asked.

"Every single day," Desmond said. "It's not perfect here, obviously. Nothing's ever perfect. But I like it here. I feel like I have more freedom. And…" he looked over at Jenny. His face was splotchy and red. "I like the people here better, too."

Jenny felt her own face start to go red too, and quickly turned her attention back to Haytham, who had started to fuss again. "That's good," she said. "I'm glad you're happy."

And from there, the conversation petered into a tense silence. More than once, Jenny started to say something, but stopped herself each time. If she asked Desmond the question she wanted to ask, the one that was nearly burning her tongue she was so desperate to ask it aloud, and if he said no…

Nothing would ever be the same.

So Jenny said nothing, and Desmond said nothing, and the only break in the silence between them was Haytham's happy babbling on the carpet between them.


	11. Chapter 11

2012

-/-

They were due to meet with another assassin at the airport, a (hopefully) loyal assassin to replace Lucy, the traitor. By this point it had been days since they left her behind, days that felt like weeks, full of constant travel and checking over their shoulders for the templars they knew must be coming at any time now.

It would have been bad enough without the animus, but the truth was they still needed information from Desmond's ancestors. And so he found himself trapped in the machine half the time, wandering through the Rome of five hundred years ago while Shaun and Rebecca worked their asses off in the real world to keep the three of them alive.

Finally they managed to track the apple down to its final resting place, and after retrieving it, they were free to leave the country at last. Hence the trip to the airport, where their contact was supposed to be waiting.

Only they were late, of course. Because, Desmond thought bitterly, it wasn't like they were allowed to have any good luck, ever.

"Who's supposed to be coming, anyway?" he asked.

"Dunno," Rebecca said. "I know it's someone out of one of the cells based in America, but I have no idea who."

"Well, they're late," Desmond grumbled. "Whoever they are."

"Desmond," Shaun said.

"I mean come on," Desmond went on. "We've been in Italy too long anyway. It'll be a lot safer when we move on."

"I know," Shaun said. "But seriously, Desmond, you might want to-"

"Desmond..?"

This time it wasn't Shaun speaking, and it wasn't Rebecca either. Desmond half glanced over his shoulder, and saw a somewhat older man, with a stern face and a frown that looked very at home there. A glance at him through eagle vision assured Desmond that the man was an ally, and presumably the American assassin they had been waiting for.

Only, that didn't explain why he was looking at Desmond like he could barely believe his eyes, or the way Shaun suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable, or how come Rebecca looked very much like she wanted to be somewhere else at that moment.

"What-"

"You don't remember me," the man said.

Desmond frowned, wracking his brain, trying to place the face, or the voice- but no. Nothing. "Should I?" he asked.

The man opened his mouth, then shut it again before he managed a single word. He nodded once, sharply, and finally managed to say, "It was a long time ago, of course. Twenty years."

Desmond only stared blankly. Twenty years ago would have been before the time travel. His life back then had been limited to the Farm and the people there, and those weren't memories he revisited very often. He really had no idea who this man was.

"Oh for God's sake, Desmond," Shaun muttered. "He's your father."

Desmond felt his mouth fall into an 'o' of surprised comprehension. He felt like the world had suddenly frozen- until that moment, he hadn't even realized he'd forgotten his own father's face. The only really clear memories he had of the man were from his last night in the twentieth century, and that night… had not been a good one.

He'd known, of course, that his father was still active in the order. During the last nine years, even though Desmond had kept himself more or less out of assassin business, he'd still managed to hear his father's name floating around in certain circles.

But to actually see him-

They watched each other, until finally Desmond shook his head and walked off. They'd have plenty of time to talk on the plane, and in the days after. Right now, he wanted nothing to do with the man. He wanted… well, what he wanted was impossible, because he just needed someone to talk to, and the one person he felt most comfortable with was far, far away.

"You loved her, didn't you?"

He glanced around, saw Rebecca there, alone, and nodded. "I know it's ridiculous," Desmond said. "Or it sounds ridiculous, anyway. I haven't seen Jenny in almost a decade, and she's been dead for- what, two hundred years, probably? Also I guess we're related… it's-"

"Did anything ever happen?" Rebecca asked. "Before you came back?"

Desmond snorted. "Came," he said. "Forced, more like. I never wanted to be in this century. I was happy when I left, and I was happy the whole time I was gone. I had a life, people I cared about, a purpose- now I have nothing, and on top of it all I'm losing my mind. I swear, sometimes I wish-" he growled something under his breath and went on. "I miss her," he said quietly. He would never have admitted it to anyone else, but Rebecca at least seemed to understand. Or at least, she was willing to listen.

"Then tell me about her," Rebecca said. "I know it's not the same, but tell me something. Anything."

She didn't have to ask twice.

-/-

1728

-/-

September of 1728 passed peacefully. Summer that year had been unusually hot, and when temperatures finally came down in early September, all of London seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Even the assassin-templar conflict had settled down for a while, both sides seemingly grateful just to be out of the heat for a while.

But for Desmond, there was an entirely different reason to enjoy September. Jenny had been away since the beginning of July, learning from some assassins in France. Desmond wasn't entirely sure what she was learning- in the letters she sent home, there was a lot of talk about dresses and dances and other things Desmond didn't really care about. From that, he sort of guessed that she was learning to pass in high society, which was probably a useful skill to have but sounded absolutely horrible. Desmond decided to think himself lucky he wasn't a woman and didn't have to learn any of that.

She was different when she came back. It had barely been two months since she left London, but in that time it seemed she had transformed, from a girl in a too-tall body that was growing too fast for her to keep up, into…

Desmond was inside the house, waiting for her when she came back, and the change caught him completely by surprise. Still, it was only when Edward (who had also been waiting for Jenny to come home) gave him a whack round the back of the head that Desmond realized he'd been staring. The hit had been halfway teasing, but there was a real note of warning there too, and Desmond fled the room before anyone could say anything else.

He didn't really want to talk to Jenny- not until he'd sorted out exactly how he felt about her transformation, anyway. But of course she tracked him down within fifteen minutes, because she knew all his hiding places. Better than he did, in most cases, and before long Jenny had wedged herself into the linen closet next to him. It wasn't the classiest hiding place, but there was a little recess in the back, behind the shelves, just large enough for one person to fit into comfortably. Or two, if they didn't mind being close.

"What's the matter with you?" Jenny asked. "What are you hiding in here for?"

"I'm not… hiding, really," Desmond said, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Jenny only rolled her eyes. "I'm sure," she said. "You just enjoy sitting in the dark all by yourself, right?"

Desmond mumbled something that was only half intelligible, even to himself. He was starting to feel really stupid for running, but… "You're just… you look weird," Desmond said. "Good weird, I mean! Not- You look very nice, I mean, and-"

"Desmond," Jenny laughed. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

"I always think-," Desmond said, before he could stop himself, and he was very glad for the darkness of the cupboard. His face felt like it was on fire, and he couldn't stop himself from flushing.

He expected Jenny to laugh, or say something teasing, but she did neither. Instead, he heard a short, sharp intake of breath, and then felt her hand on his face. They were very close together now, and Desmond was acutely aware of every inch of her next to him. Her hands moved across his face, as if Jenny were trying to map his features.

"What are you doing?" Desmond asked, but she didn't answer. Instead, she seemed to lunge forward, and for a single panicked second, Desmond had no idea what was going on. Then he felt her lips brush against his, and thought, _'Oh.'_

It was everything a first kiss was supposed to be- messy and fumbling and awkward as they both tried to figure out what they were doing. It would have been horrible with anyone else, but this was Jenny, and Desmond had been dreaming of exactly this for months now. Once, when he was small, Jenny had been the only friend he had in the world, and he'd loved her as a friend. Enough to follow her from Wales to the Caribbean, and then back to England, to live with her in London. But over time- so gradually he couldn't have said when it started- she'd become more than a friend to him.

He was in love with her, and he didn't know what to do. Until this moment, he hadn't ever believed she felt the same, and he could barely believe it now. Maybe she didn't like him that much, maybe she just wanted some fun-

The door of the cupboard opened suddenly, and Desmond jumped away from Jenny, banging his head on the low ceiling. He opened his mouth, not sure what exactly he was about to say, but Jenny pushed her hand over his mouth before he could say anything at all. There was a light in her eyes that did things to Desmond, made his stomach flip around like an acrobat doing tricks.

The person in the doorway gathered a few sheets then left, having never seen the two of them hiding behind the shelves. The door closed again and, safely hidden in the darkness, Desmond started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Jenny asked, and she sounded hurt.

"Nothing," Desmond said. "It's just- I've wanted this for so long, and we're hiding in the back of a linen cupboard and it's a little- I don't know."

"Oh," Jenny said, and she laughed a little too, almost a giggle. "Well, I guess that's a relief. That you've been thinking about this too, I mean, because I've been trying to work up the courage to do this for months, and then I left for France and you were all I could think about-"

Then they were both talking over one another, excited and loud and happy. Desmond felt like the words were spilling out of him, even though he knew there would never be enough words in the world to explain how he felt or why. Finally, they trailed off into silence, and Jenny took his hand and squeezed it in the darkness. "My dad's going to kill you when he finds out," she said cheerfully.


	12. Chapter 12

1738

-/-

"Alright," Haytham said one morning. There was a heavy drizzle outside, the kind that could almost be a mist but wasn't, and anyone foolish enough to venture outside would find themselves soaked through in minutes. "So you've told me everything about what happened when Desmond was here, _except _how he left."

"Didn't I?" Jenny asked, vaguely. She was distracted, staring out the window and rubbing the fingers of her right hand over the palm of the left. Something about this kind of weather tended to make her mind wander, and today was no different.

"You didn't," Haytham said.

"Oh," Jenny said, still without looking away from the window. She'd been telling her brother about her childhood in little bits and pieces, jumping all over the place as individual memories came back to her. "I thought I did."

Haytham only shook his head, and, when she said nothing else, asked- "Don't you trust me?"

"What?" Jenny asked.

"Is it because I'm a templar?" Haytham asked. "Is that why you won't tell me?"

Jenny rolled her eyes. "You're thirteen years old and my little brother," she said. "I don't give half a flying fuck what side of this war you think you're on now. I wouldn't care if you grew up to be grandmaster of the templars, we're still family and I would trust you with anything."

"Then why won't you tell me?" Haytham asked.

"It's not you," Jenny said. "It's just- that day, it… I don't like to think about it. But if you want me to tell you…" She took a deep breath, and finally looked straight at him. "I will."

-/-

1729

-/-

"Eleven years to the day," Jenny said, with a certain amount of drama. "And this is the only time since then that I've seen it rain so badly."

"Eleven years since what?" Edward asked, but Jenny didn't answer. She only glanced at Desmond, who nodded because of course he knew exactly what she meant. It had been eleven years since Jenny first walked into her grandmother's barn and found Desmond shivering and shaking in a corner, miserable and afraid. In some ways, Jenny thought that might have been the day she fell in love with him. Not the way she loved him now, of course- she'd only been five years old at the time, and that kind of love had been too big for her to understand.

That love had come more slowly, creeping over her until she couldn't keep it inside any longer. Finding out Desmond felt the same, it was like- like she'd been living half asleep her whole life, and now she was awake. It was wonderful, but it was terrible too, because Jenny was very aware that they were both sixteen years old. Right now, she could believe that love would last, but she was old enough to know that she was young. How many people found the person they believed was their soul mate, only to realize months or years or decades later that it had only been a silly infatuation all at once? Her own father had left her mother before Jenny was even born, and while she loved both of them, she wasn't sure she could ever quite forgive him for that.

"Jenny?" Desmond said. "You still with us?"

"Sorry." She shook her head. "Lost in thought."

They were all gathered in the dining room- Jenny, Desmond, Edward, Tessa, and Haytham. The weather that morning had been beautiful and warm, and they'd planned to go out to the park, enjoy the weather and their time together while they still could. Then the weather had turned stormy out of nowhere, and now they were stuck inside.

"What are you looking at, dad?" Jenny asked, more to change the subject than anything. He was poring over a letter he'd gotten earlier, an unusually serious expression on his face.

"Nothing," Edward said, but he glanced at Haytham as he said it, and Jenny knew it must have something to do with the assassins. Everyone else in the room knew about the order, even Tessa, who wasn't part of it herself. But Edward had been very clear on the idea that Haytham wasn't to be told until he was older. Ten, he'd said, although that seemed like an entirely arbitrary number to Jenny. Still, she hadn't said anything, and neither had anyone else.

He was playing with a set of toy soldiers on the floor, but when the conversation turned in another direction, he abandoned the toys and came to sit next to Jenny. "Is he leaving again?" he whispered, pointing at Edward.

"No," Jenny said. "I don't think so." Her brother smiled, apparently reassured- he hated when any of them left, but especially Edward. It was only natural, for a kid his age. Someday he'd understand, when he was older and knew the truth. For now, Jenny was more interested in letting him have a childhood. They all were, for that matter. He was only a child. An innocent.

"I think the storm's letting up," Desmond said suddenly, glancing out the window.

"It doesn't look like it," said Tessa.

"Oh." Desmond frowned. "I hadn't heard any thunder for a while, so I thought…" he trailed off, suddenly very pale. "Jenny?"

"What?"

"Can we- I need to talk to you upstairs."

She nodded and got up at once- he sounded too panicked for her to do anything else, and when they were safely alone he turned to her. His voice was rapid and afraid, like he was trying to say everything he needed to before- before what?

"It's happening again," he said. "I'm leaving."

"You're-" and she thought of the storm outside, and her own words from earlier, that she hadn't seen it's like since the day Desmond first came to this century. "You're going back," she said.

"It feels just like the first time," he said. "Sort of- I don't know. But it's terrible, and I don't want to go."

"Don't," she said. "Desmond, don't-" her throat seized up a little, so that the words came out choked and rough. "Eleven years isn't enough time, it's not fair-"

He interrupted her with a kiss, slow and careful like he was trying to memorize every moment of it. She leaned into him, felt his arms around herself. He was still shorter than she was, and she suddenly thought of how vulnerable he was, really, and she was afraid to think of him being alone, in his own time, without her. Or maybe she was just afraid to think of herself alone, here, without him.

Then suddenly he felt less… solid. Like he was sliding away from her, and then- he was gone. Completely, as though he had never been. Jenny half fell forward, off balance now that he wasn't there to lean against. She put out a hand to stop her fall and scraped it badly on a loose nail there. It immediately started to bleed, but she barely even noticed. She was crying, sobbing really, in absolute silence as she mourned. This morning, she had imagined a happy life stretching out before her, and now she had no idea what the future held.

But she would certainly be alone for whatever it might be.

-/-

2012

-/-

"Do you want to stop?" Rebecca asked, quietly.

"No," Desmond said. He felt stupid (and angry over feeling stupid), mostly because he'd started crying at some point during his story, and he didn't think he'd be able to stop anytime soon. They weren't big, messy tears, but they were very present and very visible, even in the dim lights of the temple. The three of them were closeted in one of the many little crannies in the place, safely hidden from Desmond's father and the ghost-hologram-thing that was Juno.

The tears were pointless, but there didn't seem to be much point in hiding them. Everything was going wrong all of a sudden- his dad was still there, still as angry and impossible to please as ever, only now with an added layer of awkwardness that Desmond didn't remember from when he was a child. After all, they hadn't seen each other in two decades, and Desmond still refused to talk about where he had been for most of that time.

Then there was the end of the world, an ever present countdown to December 21, hanging like a naked sword over their heads. And- well, in the animus there were the Kenways. Connor wasn't bad. He was just another ancestor that Desmond knew nothing about, a stranger in every way possible. Haytham, on the other hand, was someone Desmond knew. He'd changed his diapers, played with him, lied to him for years and years about the war between the templars and assassins (and, if that lie had never been told, would Haytham have grown up on the other side of that war?). Only now- in the animus-

"What happened next?" Shaun asked. He leaned forward, apparently unaware of Desmond's feelings. Strangely enough, that made Desmond feel slightly better. He didn't want to be pitied or looked down at, and Shaun very clearly did not care.

"Nothing," he said. "I mean- you know the rest."

"I don't," Rebecca said, and she looked nearly as interested in Shaun. "I mean, you came back to this century, right? But what happened then?"

"I met Shaun," Desmond said, and the man snorted.

"He looked like a complete nutter," he said to Rebecca. "Or at least drunk."

"Nope," Desmond said. "Just three hundred years out of time."

-/-

2003

-/-

Desmond fell.

Through time and empty space he fell, with the ghost of Jenny all over him. In his arms, on his lips, and all over his heart. He felt heavy, weighed down by a sadness greater than any loss than he had ever known. And then he landed, hard, splatting against the ground like a bird flying into a window. His mouth was bleeding, and when he reached up to feel it there was a cut there over his lips, just where Jenny's mouth had been seconds ago. He thought it might scar. He hoped it would. Then he would never forget.

"Hey…"

Desmond opened his eyes and saw, for the first time since he had been a child, the twenty first century. He was on the side of a crowded street somewhere, possibly London if the accents around him were anything to judge by. But everything looked different, and sounded different- it even smelled different. Cleaner, without the ever present stench of sewage that Desmond had come to know very well in the eighteenth century.

"Are you drunk or something?"

There was a man standing over him, maybe five years older than Desmond, maybe a little more, looking at him like he was something mildly repulsive that had gotten stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"I'm not- I'm fine," Desmond said, and scrambled to his feet.

"Yea, you look it," said the man, and Desmond realized that he probably did look ridiculous- he was dressed in clothes three centuries out of date, his face was bleeding, and he could feel that he eyes were red and puffed from crying. The man sighed and made a face like he already regretted what he was about to say. "Come on. I know a guy who can sew you up." He gestured at his own mouth and Desmond realized his was still bleeding. "He won't ask questions, either."

Desmond considered saying no. He didn't want some stranger's help- he didn't want anyone's help. But then… he glanced around, at the unfamiliar streets and the strange people pushing past them. This was the time he had been born into, but he had lived much longer in the eighteenth century than the twenty first. This place was strange to him, and he had absolutely no idea where to go next, or what to do.

"Alright," he said instead. "Um… thanks.

"Yea." The man nodded and turned around, gesturing at Desmond to follow. "I'm Shaun, by the way. Shaun Hastings."

"Desmond…" and he hesitated, not quite sure what to say. He'd always gone by his real name, but now he was worried. Somehow it felt more dangerous, like just using his name could be enough to connect him to the Farm, and bring his parents looking for him. It was stupid, but still. "Kenway," he finished, and Shaun nodded. Either he hadn't noticed, or he just didn't care.

"Come on then," he said, and they didn't say anything else as they walked.


	13. Chapter 13

1781

-/-

"We don't have to do this," Haytham said quietly.

The words should have been barely audible. In the distance, cannonballs screamed through the air and crashed into walls that buckled and broke under the strain. Men screamed and shouted orders at one another, and- well. War happened. All around them, war.

Connor didn't answer. He was angry, far angrier than Haytham had ever seen him. Not that he really had much experience with Connor, after all. He'd only met the boy a few years ago.

"Connor-"

He deflected a blow, but didn't strike back. It wasn't that he couldn't- Connor was younger than him, and stronger, but also hampered by his own rage. Haytham ducked and dodged around a few more blows, without once moving to strike back.

This finally spurred Connor to speak. "Why don't you fight?" he snarled.

"So you can kill me without guilt?" Haytham asked. "I don't want to die-"

Connor growled at him, and narrowed his eyes.

"And I want you to die even less!"

Connor froze so abruptly, Haytham nearly tripped over him. "You what?" he asked.

"You're my son," Haytham said. "Why would I want you dead?"

"You're a templar," Connor said. "I'm an assassin."

"We're family," Haytham said. When he closed his eyes, he could almost see that rainy day with Jenny, when he had been a boy barely into his teens, still angry and confused, with no idea how the world was supposed to work.

_"Don't you trust me?"_

_"What?"_

_"Is it because I'm a templar? Is that why you won't tell me?"_

_"You're thirteen years old and my little brother. I don't give half a flying fuck what side of this war you think you're on now. I wouldn't care if you grew up to be grandmaster of the templars, we're still family and I would trust you with anything."_

"None of that matters."

Connor gave Haytham a look that said clearly he had no intention of believing him, but slowly, he lowered his weapons. "I do not understand," he said.

"No," Haytham said. And really, that was his fault- he'd been stupid and let their opposing viewpoints blind him to the fact that no matter what else happened, they were still family. And now here they were, with weapons drawn and no love lost between them.

"Walk away now," Haytham said.

"Is that a threat?"

"What? No." Haytham scowled at him. "It's- we're standing in the middle of a battle, do you really think this is the best time to discuss this?"

"And what is 'this', exactly?" Connor asked.

A cannonball crashed into the walls nearby, the closest so far, and Haytham scowled. "I'm not staying here to be shot," he said. "Come talk to me. Later."

And he left before Connor could answer. There was always the chance, of course, that Connor would decide to fight instead of talk. And if that happened- well, he would have to keep trying, that was all. He-

Something invisible flew through the air and hit Haytham, hard, on the side of the head. He stumbled, but it was- it was _Desmond _that fell, suddenly feeling sick and off balance as the stone floor rushed up to meet him. He curled in on himself protectively, arms over his face as the last of the hallucination faded away. He wasn't sure if he was trying to shut out the rest of the world, or just keep what little pieces of himself were still _him_ safely inside his head.

"Sorry," someone said overhead. Desmond had to wrack his brains for several seconds before he recognized Shaun's voice. "You were kind of staring into space-"

"It's fine," Desmond said, and forced himself to sit up. "I- needed that." And wasn't it shaming to admit that he couldn't even keep track of his own mind without help. The bleeding effect had been getting steadily worse for weeks- although how could it be the bleeding effect, if he was seeing memories of Haytham's from years after Connor was born?

"I just want it to be over," he said, when Shaun continued to hover. It was December 19th- two days before the end of the world. He would have his wish soon enough, he knew. Even if he somehow survived the upcoming disaster, his mind couldn't last much longer. "What's wrong with a happy ending?"

-/-

1739

-/-

There was no such thing as happy endings, of course.

Jenny had always known that, from the moment her mother died and left her all alone in the world. But it had never seemed as true as it did this morning, not even on the day Desmond had been ripped through time and stolen away from her.

Haytham had finally left. It had been months- nearly half a year, and for a while Jenny had dared to believe that he would stay. A stupid idea, really. Stupid. What had she expected? She'd left when he was a child, and he was hardly going to abandon the templars because of her. Of course he would go back to them. He believed in what they stood for, and honestly Jenny might have been a little disappointed if he'd been able to abandon his ideals so easily.

She didn't agree with him, but she could at least approve of the strength of his conviction.

But… it left her alone, again. Her parents were dead. Her brother was gone. And her one chance at happiness, the only person she had ever loved, was never coming back.

If her life were a story, one of those penny dreadfuls that were so popular at the moment, this would be the moment when everything changed. She had reached rock bottom, and it was time for the deux ex machima that would turn her life upside down. Wasn't she due for a bit of good luck?

No.

Because this was the real world, and that was not how the real world worked.

She let out a deep sigh, one that seemed to empty her out from head to foot. Then she shook her head- and went on with her life.

Because that was how the real world worked. Things got worse, and she just kept fighting, harder and harder as she lost one person after another. She would fight her whole life if she had to, no matter what happened.

She would fight.

And maybe some of that fight would not be in vain. After all, Haytham had seemed receptive to the idea that he could be a loyal templar and her brother at the same time. Maybe he would even remember that. She didn't think he would come back- but maybe she would see him again someday. Maybe, he would remember.

-/-

2012

-/-

In the end, Desmond was left with nothing but regrets and unanswered questions. That was life. Even as Juno and her strange technology drained the life out of him, as he screamed and burned and _broke _from the pain of it all, some part of Desmond's mind was still calm enough to reflect on that.

There had been happy times in his life, yes- his childhood after he left the farm had been bright and as nearly perfect as anyone's could be. Everything had gone wrong, of course, and even now, ten years later, Desmond still wished with every fiber of his dying body that he was still in that century, still more or less happy. And he wondered why he'd been able to travel there in the first place, and why he'd come back. Even with everything he had seen in the last few months, it still seemed impossible.

Well, he would never know now.

His life had been shorter and stranger and sadder than he had ever expected, and now it was over. Now, at last, came the biggest question of all. It was time to find out what came next, and maybe- just maybe, if he were lucky, see the girl he loved again.

**-/-**

**And... the end. Not a happy ending, but this fic is old and I don't want to bother going back and rewriting it. Hope you enjoyed it anyway.**


End file.
